It’s · not · the · fall · that · kills · you, · but · the · sudden · stop.

Flying first class is much more interesting (not to mention comfortable) than flying pigs-n-chickens class.

I've met some interesting people, including the CEO of Sire Records who discovered The Ramones and Madonna (and who, it later came to light, was flirting with me, but I'm an incredible dolt in these matters and never pick up on the info at the time. Broken gaydar is a bitch).

Today, flying from DFW—>LAS I had the extreme joy of being seated next to a Mad TV stereotype.

What comes to mind when I say the word "guido"?

Now blow that image up larger than life. That was my seat partner for two and a half hours today.

Boarding the plane, I plopped my bag down and said a laconic, "Hey, howah doin'?" as is my wont, to the fellow in the adjoining seat.

This fellow replied not in any words I can spell, but a pig-like grunt of reproach that someone the likes of *I* would dare to speak to someone of his ilk.

My curiosity was riled. I examined him peripherally.

Red and black striped silk satin shirt, top four buttons undone to reveal about four pounds of enormous gold jewelry nested cozily in his grey-black tufts of chest hair. Chunky gold rings on seven of ten fingers, each with exaggerated precious or semi-precious stones set in each. A gold bracelet with about fifteen karats of small diamonds inset. Brown designer sunglasses with thick, thick, thick gold frames. Black pants rolled at the cuffs so that every inch of his baby-shit-hued ostrich cowboy boots could be appreciated. Hair plugs (or toupée? — I could not definitively discern) petted and puffed like a colicky baby. Slap dat weave, 'Quishi!

I had to cover my mouth and feign a coughing fit because the laughter was threatening to bubble up, lava-like, and once it began I knew I could not stop it.

When the meal was served (there are still meals on planes, but only in the front cabin), he was offered the chicken encrusted in sweet potato or the four-cheese ravioli. "Chicken," he grunted, swine-like.

"And to drink sir?"

He named some obscure Scotch.

"I'm sorry, we don't have that."

An exasperated sigh and a literal voicing of a phrase which I thought was never actually uttered, but used only in a derogatory way.

"Faggeddaboutit."

I bit my tongue so hard I still have a sore spot on the left side of it.

Throughout the flight, I spent much of the time napping. I woke a couple of times to behold his ridiculous person and snickered anew each time.

At one point during the flight, he removed each of his rings and held them up to the window to examine the light coming through the diamonds, the turquoise, the opal, the topaz, the amber.

The very second we accomplished Wheels Down, he took out not one, not two, but three cell devices and turned them all on, arranging them on his lap, squaring the angles, rearranging in a more pleasing manner, petting and fawning over them as he did his (fake?) hair.

One of his phones was a Sprint, same model as mine.

I turned mine on and stuck it back into my pocket, suspecting that I would have texts coming in during the flight. I just wanted to fuck with him.

Sure enough, my phone started chirping the "new text" sound, which was the same on his. I ignored it, feigning sleep, but watched him through a cracked eyelid.

Each time my phone chirped (it happened three times), he picked up his Sprint phone and beeped and booped, touching his project hair gingerly in confusion when nothing new popped up.

As we wended our way through the Vegas tarmacs, the sun occasionally deigned to shine through his window at this or that angle, hitting his bracelet. The result was that of a drag queen throwing up on the walls, the ceiling, the seats of the plane. A magical, colorful world of fairy pixie dust. A giant glitter ball. Dat bling reflects, yo, lighting up the entire first class cabin with fireworks of sparkles.

Rickilane met me at baggage retrieval. I finally started laughing out loud, telling him about my flying partner. It was like holding it for a long, long time when you have to pee. I just gushed laughter.

"What do you think of when I say 'guido'?" I asked him.

"Uhhh, that guy?" he said, pointing right at him across the airport. "He's gonna strain his neck with all dat gold, baybee!"

Wonder who he was. He probably owns The Venetian or something.

Feggedaboutit.

If you've ever read the book (or seen the film, for that matter) "Misery," you will understand my frustration.

The other day coming home from a deeeelicious lunch at Green Goddess, it started pouring like we rarely see even in this deluge-capital of the world.

Heavy rains are usually short and clear up within 30 minutes, tops. This one kept going.

I was on a bike. Ben, on foot, with a gym bag.

"Here, let me put your phone in my water-tight pocket of the bag," said Ben.

"Great. See you at home," I said, walking out into the waterfall of the skies.

When Ben got home, his "watertight" bag proved anything but. I poured water out of my phone. A dangerous yellow screen popped up and the heartwarming words, "Emergency Download Mode" popped up. Yikes!

I took out the battery, used the hair dryer, and left the thing alone for a few hours hoping it would recover.

Eventually, it did. Thank god. All my numbers are in there, and I'm not entirely backed-up in that info.

The lasting problem however is that my '6' key won't work.

As I add new bar patrons who pique my interest into my phone, I have to first ask, "Wait, you don't have a '6' in your number, do you?"

"Uhhh…no."

"Good. We can be friends."

The '6' key is also the m-n-o key for texting. I use the phone to text more often than I do to talk. I feel crippled, and spend some time convoluting my sentences so that they might not contain those contaminated letters, although zero substitutes for 'o' rather well.

Anyway, it's like working on the protagonist's typewriter in "Misery."

So this is going out to those few people with whom I enjoy prolonged text-sparring sessions: if you receive a text from me that has inappropriate apostrophes, it's a placeholder for either the letter m, n, or o. Think of it like a little quiz. (I'd use a dash, but that's also the '6' key.)

In the meantime, I will try 2 text w/0 th0se 3 letters, alth0ugh it c0uld reduce phrases in2 stra'ge acr0batics + 'y w0rdi'g c0uld be questio'ed.

You may recall on Thursday there was a busted pipe in the walls of Clifford, behoovinating me to turn off the water to the house and leaving eight (or so? I'm not sure how many tenants I have at the moment) people without dishwater, shower water, toilet water, etc., on the hottest weekend of the year.

On Friday, after Ben called every plumber in the book, and just one called back, we met the man at Clifford.

"Aw, it's in the ceiling. I don't have a ladder. I can drive to Harahan to pick one up. I'll only charge you half my rate, so $75 an hour."

Me, thinking: Isn't it your job to have these things, especially when the client calls and says, "There's a leak in the ceiling"?

Ben, to Plumber Man: How about you go upstairs and deal with a clogged sink while Todd runs home and straps the 10' ladder to the car roof?

Worked out well. The moment I returned with the ladder he had finished the sink problem, so no $150/hr. time wasted.

He punched through the drywall in the corner of the house and found the problem on the first stab.

This is testimony to good old fashioned New Orleans craftsmanship right here. Look at this pipe that someone decided was okay to install, ten or so years ago.

Yes, someone began cutting this pipe, decided not to go through with it, but then used the damaged thing anyway.

Do all plumbers in this city smoke crack? I know our Manderley plumber sure does (the only plumber in the book we did not put a call in to).

Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't been an issue before. It's worn through so thin at this gash, I do not understand how it's survived ten years in service.

Anyway, he cut out the bad bit, spliced in some new stuff, and was on his way in under an hour. What could have conceivably been a $1,000+ job ended up being $200, and a clogged sink fixed in the bargain.

Just got our water bill for Clifford. Almost $300. It's supposed to be around $100. YEEK! I hope that it is due to the leak, and not sloppy tenant behavior. I noticed that someone didn't turn the shower off entirely when I was over there. That's the kind of shit that can rack up my bill.

Speaking of recalcitrant tenants, this cat o' mine — her little power struggles — they're so cute in their very futility.

"I'm making the bed, kitty," I told my (deaf) cat.

"I'm napping here, bitch," said her eyes.

"Fine. Don't move then. See if I care."

On quite another note, tonight (Tues.) is my last night this week working 700 Club. Come on by from 9p–late. Mmwah.

At the recommendation of the wise Mme. Bat, Ben bought us a WiiFitness pad and software for our Nintendo system.

I know, it sounds super-lame, but it's super-not. Today we did our first workout. Now, you must know that I have nothing against exercise. Wish I had more of it in my life. It's nice bartending again. I get to walk about four or five miles a night behind the bar. But that's entertaining. Going bike riding is also entertaining because I get to look at the pretty houses in my, and adjacent neighborhoods.

The gym, however, is NOT entertaining to me. It's bo-bo-boooorinnnng, and totally turns me off. If I have to do repetitive motions for 30–60 minutes, I prefer to do it with another person and in a bed.

So along comes this WiiFitness thang-a-ma-doodle. It's like playing a video game, except you're burning calories, building muscle, improving balance and posture, getting cardio, etc. You've got a little trainer yelling at you. And you're little Mii character responds emotionally to how you do on any given task. For example, my little Mii, which looks like me incidentally, jumps up and down with excitement when I complete the Tree Position exercise under the yoga task, but hangs his head in shame when I can't complete the push-ups routine under the strength tab.

This keeps me entertained and laughing, and that's the only way I'm ever going follow a physical regimen.

The charts, graphs, and manners of recording progress are astoundingly complex and robust and give you something to work towards.

You set a goal, whether it be increasing muscle, losing weight, improving posture and balance, etc. I chose to lose 15 lbs. by Decadence so I can don my WeasleWear™ punkrock/slutty clothes. Hey, it's the light at the end of my tunnel, and woe be to ANY fucking hurricane that pisses on my parade yet again.

I know I'm going to be sore tomorrow from my little routine today, because I haven't done proper exercises in ages, and that means it's working, right?

Watch out, scottynola. I'm gonna be "upgraded" from your "pics of friends" section to "pics of random hotties" before you know it.

Addendum: this is the first time I've used the tag "exercise" on my journal. Pretty sad, eh?

I love Clifford, but I often wish that the housing market were better and I could sell it. Listing Clifford now would be giving it away. Not interested, thanks. Yes, I want the money out of it, but Clifford is carrying itself, so it's not actually costing anything to sit on it and wait for a better seller's market. And we're currently blessed with great tenants in both addresses of the house — which is never a thing to take for granted.

A few weeks ago the upstairs tenant called and said the A/C wasn't working. Recalling our years there, the first time we tried the A/C in the summer it never worked. Ben had a magic trick of wiggling some wires or kicking a pipe or some other Fred Flintstone solution that seemed to work. This time, the solution was as simple as it gets: flip the circuit breaker, et là voilà!

I felt I saved $150 when we discovered the cure.

Today's going to be a bit more expensive. Got a call from the downstairs tenant yesterday: "There's water coming in from the ceiling in the bathroom." Uh oh.

I zoomed over to Clifford to take a look. Sure enough, there was a slow drip, nothing TOO alarming, coming into his bathroom from upstairs. A peek in the upstairs bathroom showed no water at all. Strange.

A peek outside, under the balcony, showed a small waterfall shooting out from between the siding of the house and cascading down from the second floor.

I turned off the main water, wrote a note to all the tenants, came home and relayed the sitch to Ben who kindly went through the whole phone book until he found a plumber who had the good manners to return a call.

In a minute we're going back to meet the plumber. I'm afraid that a burst pipe 14 feet up within the walls is going to cost a bit more than flipping a circuit breaker.

Oh, cross your fingers that the issue will be dealt with quickly and cheaply.

Ben and I are on diets. We're doing pretty well. Lots of salads and chicken breasts. Occasionally (once a week?) we go "wild" and have actual people food, but even then we try not to glutton our way back to page one, or choose the carbiest foods in all the land. (Green Goddess is an excellent place to jump off, yet not stray too far from the wagon, incidentally.)

I've already lost ten pounds. Another ten or fiften would suit me well. My clothes will be much happier with me, at any rate.

Yesterday we went grocery shopping. $291 later we have a fridge full of veggies and lean meats and little frozen dinner things when actual cooking seems too labor intensive.

Speaking of labor intensive, this afternoon I made my mean, lean lasagna. I guess I have two "signature" dishes that I cook. The spinachoniongarlicdip (no, don't even think of asking for that recipe), and the lean lasagna, the latter, despite its having very little fat and not too bad carb-wise, is my favorite lasagna recipe ever, even beating out traditional brick-in-the-stomach lasagnas.

I found this recipe years ago on epicurious.com, and tweaked it into something even better.

Here then, for your perusal, and my own keyworded-reference, is Todd's Mean, Lean Lasagna recipe, great for dinner and easily microwavable for the rest of the week.

Ingredients:
1 medium-sized yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 or 1 1/2 heads of garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped (there can never be too much garlic)
1 lb. lean ground turkey
3 c. (or one 26 oz. jar) tomato sauce
1 small can (6 oz.) tomato paste for thickening
3 tsp. Italian seasoning (equal parts basil, oregano, parsley)
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 c. chopped fresh shiitake caps
6 c. chopped fresh baby spinach
2 c. (or one 15 oz. 'thing') fat-free ricotta
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 package whole wheat lasagna noodles (about 8 or 9 noodles)
2 c. shredded part-skim or 2% milk mozzarella
1 tbsp. shredded parm or romano

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease 13" x 9" lasagna pan. Sauté onions until slightly caramelized (5 mins?), then add turkey and garlic and cook an additional 5 to 7 minutes. Drain if necessary. Add tomato sauce, tomato paste, all seasoning (except nutmeg), and mushrooms and simmer for a few minutes. Remove from heat. In a bowl, combine spinach, ricotta and nutmeg. Squoosh with hands until the spinach is covered in ricotta. Bring to a boil salted water and cook lasagna noodles until al dente/slightly wobbly. Drain and rinse with cool water. Arrange 1/2 of the noodles on the bottom of the pan. Spread 1/2 the ricotta mixture over noodles and pat down. Spread 1/2 the tomato mixture next. Spread 1/2 the mozzarella next. Lay down the rest of the noodles, and repeat sequence. Finish with the parmesan or romano. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, convection if your oven will do that. Cheese should be bubbling and golden brown. Cool at least 5 minutes before cutting.

You're welcome.

I'm reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies at the moment, and enjoying every page. I suppose technically it's fanfic, but it's written so exquisitely well that I'll look past that odious genre and enjoy it as its own creation.

It's surprising (and hilarious) how Jane Austen's pre-Victorian tale of manners can blend so well with brain matter and dismemberment. The plot follows Pride and Prejudice perfectly, as do the characters and nuances of the original. Except there are zombies.

If I were to teach an English class to a bunch of high school students, I think this book would serve as a perfect substitute for the original, and perk up the less literary-minded of the teens. A whole new generation of Austenphiles could be born from this book.

( Excerpt from the book. )

…or “Un Saison En Enfer…”

My friend/erstwhile-boss Leila invited me to Ship Island with the old Hideout gang yesterday. Ship Island is basically a sand dune about 11 miles off the coast of Gulfport, MS. I've been wanting to go there for years, and what better time than with my old-skool bitches Leila, Candace and nofunangie?

Seeing as this date falls in the middle of my work week, I took Monday night off, knowing I'd be holidaying after three hours of sleep, then too sun-tired to work the next night as well.

"We'll be on the road at 9:00," said Leila. I got home at 5:30am from work and took a too-short nap.

9:00 actually meant 10:00, and I cursed the skies, "You mean I could have had another hour of sleep!?"

It was a happy, sunshiny day on the drive out to Mississippi. We stopped for beer and sammiches and met the girls in the parking lot of the ferry for a tailgate party until the boat left.

$48 later, Ben and I had our tickets and boarded the "Capt. Pete" ferry. Capt. Pete was there to greet us. He'd aged a lot since his picture with Jayne Mansfield upon the same boat fifty years earlier. His nose resembled a cauliflower quite literally, but it somehow became him.

The ferry takes about an hour. Dozens of gray dolphins leap out on all sides of the boat. The day was quickly becoming idyllic.

We disembarked and lugged our cooler and umbrellas across the boardwalk that spans the thin island and past the brick civil war fort. Did I say "island?" It really is a sand dune. The largest vegetation is a waist-high piece of grass. Shade is nonexistent. Thank god Leila brought the large umbrellas.

We set up our shop far away from the fat, howling offspring of the fat Mississippians and immediately jumped in the warm yet refreshing water.

Fifteen seconds into it, Ben and I started bitching at each other: There's something biting me!

We got out of the stingy-bitey water and laid down on our towels. The girls came back soon after. They too were itchy-scratchy from the stings.

"Sand fleas?" I asked.

"No," said Leila laughing. "It's the invisible disembodied tentacles of dead jellyfish."

"Great fun!"

I found some large hermit crabs and moved them up the beach a bit, clocking their race back to the water.

It was hot enough that further trips into the invisible-sea-monster-infested waters became necessary.

The sun disappeared behind a mammoth cloud bank that hadn't been there a moment before. Lightening flashed miles out in the Gulf. The wind picked up, twisting our umbrellas into absurd flower shapes. With the wind came the biting flies.

We noticed the beach was clearing out. We reluctantly broke down our idyllic picnic setting and tramped back to the boardwalk with the rest of the howler monkeys and their obese guardians. The ferry was still two hours from arriving and the only shelter on the dune is the old fort.

It began raining a little bit, then decided not to. The fort was pretty cool, reminding me of the underground catacomb nightclub Shunt in London.

The ferry home was pleasant, if a bit loud from the mewling cabbages running around unattended by their overseers. More dolphins and seagulls swooping down to steal Cheetos from the snack-minded passenger.

A dark, wet drive home through the rain. I could hardly keep my eyes open.

Despite the itching, scratching, biting and stinging; despite the five hours of travel for two hours of play; despite the cost of the boat — it really was somehow a perfect day. You'll just have to take my word for it.

And yes, I'd do it again.

The Queen Bee of Krayzee over at Krayzee Kornerz decided, about a year ago, that she felt fit to take care of another living thing, despite the fact that her fourteen year old daughter is a neglected mess, and she successfully drove my friend Ed, her erstwhile boyfriend, to drink himself to death.

So she got a kitten.

Chee Wee was a cute little orange male tabby. On days when the weather permitted us to keep doors and windows open, Chee Wee would pop into my office, play with my toes, loll about adorably, etc. He was well on his way to becoming a Very Good Cat.

Queen Bee neglected (surprise!) to get him fixed. She also neglected to feed him or take care of his flea problem. So I didn't mind Chee Wee nomming down on Harley's kibbles, and I even put a few doses of Revolution, which costs about as much as plutonium, and is just as effective on fleas, on his neck from time to time because his little orange cat head was black with crawling vermin.

As he matured under the — shall we say "relaxed?" tutelage of Queen Bee, his charming properties vanished one by one as he descended swiftly down the road to Thug Cat. No more playing catch-the-toe. His new game is called "jump into your house and knock over your vintage red glass punch bowl." Or, if the punch bowl was at the cobblers, how about "pee on the laundry." That's always a fun one.

Queen Bee was, to the neighborhood's symphony of relieved sighs, evicted some months ago. She took her crappy furniture. She took her sad old wardrobe. But she left Chee Wee in an astounding, yet in no wise unforeseen lapse of motherly duties.

Chee Wee is now pure ghetto. A filthy, scabby, still un-fixed mess of a thug kitty. If he were human, he'd be a violent mugger. Any resemblance to the catch-the-toe kitten I once was so fond of is entirely vanishèd.

A few months ago I saw him limping around with a sprained or broken hind leg. (It healed by my next encounter with him.)

His new favorite game is called "Dis Be Mine," wherein he hops down onto my deck while I'm out there reading or pottering about with the plants, looks me straight in the eye, backs his huge, dangling nuts up to the house and sprays his vile effluvium on my happy home.

Which leads me to this question, open to all who care to have an opinion on the subject: What would you do with Chee Wee?

I'm of a mind to call ASPCA and deliver unto them this wretched little monster though it would almost certainly be a death sentence because no one will want to adopt this train wreck of a cat. I am not of a mind to shell out any of my ducats nor time to get this beast fixed, and neither, it seems, are any of the other inmates of Krayzee Kornerz inclined to do the same.

What, in your opinion, is the "right" thing to do?

And then, knowing what's "right," what would you actually do?

Thanks.

The chasm of cultural and aesthetic differences between me and some people is so wide and deep it's as dizzying as staring into the Grand Canyon.

Living a block off Bourbon Street, I often find myself saying, "How can anyone think THAT is a good idea?" in reference to lime plaid golfing shorts and orange crox-n-sox, for example.

Today, while leaving Lowe's up Elysian Fields, the chasm just got a little wider and deeper.

There was this … truck … or, no, wait, it was an SUV. Or … not. A truck-you-vee, if you will. I don't even know. It was Cadillac. All other insignia were removed. It was tricked out within an inch of its life. Its mammoth fuselage was painted shiny lime green. The rims were extra-extra-double-triple-super-big chrome. With matching lime green peeking out from behind the gleaming … spokes?

Remember Uma Thurman's Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill? It was on par with that.

I stared at the hideous behemoth, rolling my eyes, thinking my old mantra: Who on earth could possibly think that's sexy?

Wait. It gets better.

So I'm walking past it to go to my car and I notice it's parked in a blue handicap spot. RLY? SRSLY? I check the plates. Sho 'nuff, there's a little wheelchair down in the corner. Pimp grandma's ride, yo! I'm laughing quietly, but audibly at this point.

Wait. It gets better.

The owner arrives. Oh yay, I thought. This should be a fun show.

Didn't look handicapped to me. Black guy, late 30s, fit, walking without a limp. Yup, pretty much the only handicapped aspect of this charming fellow was his tragic choice of how to spend his own hard-earned.

He hops up into the beast and shuts the door. I can barely see his silhouette through the black-tinted windows. Then he starts it up. I have long been of the idea that the muffler in a car or on a bike is directly proportional to the size of the owner's genitalia. The smaller (louder) the muffler, the tinier the dick. And what about those who ride bikes with no muffler? Well, you do the math.

This monster Pussy Wagon — er, Cock Truck actually — ROARS into life, startling pigeons several parking rows away.

Mantra: How can anyone think that's cool?

Wait. It gets better.

Then, of course, the music commences. Some generic vacuum of an R&B song, and the base is up so high that immediately five car alarms in the vicinity go off. Mine included. I look at the guy shaded behind his blackened window and give a WFT-you-cocksucking-dork shrug. Inside I'm screaming with laughter.

He backs out clumsily (handicapped MUCH?) and zooms off, a symphony of car alarms hooting, honking, beeping and screaming in his wake.

Now … okay … does this man have friends? And are his friends the sort that might envy his possession? Or do that have Pussy Wagons of their own? Is it a club? The one with the poorest taste wins? And what is the prize? A ghetto makeover? Free gas for a year? At 4mpg, that would be a fortune in petrol.

Mantra again: HOW can ANYONE think THAT'S okay?

It went well.

It went better than well. It went great.

I was chill all day. As I made my spinach dip, as I cleaned the house, as I (with help from Paul and Ben) arranged the rooms for a recital. As I showered and put on my Versace suit — big nights call for big names. As I greeted the arrivals. I was totally chill. And it amazed me.

I think the episode a few nights ago when I lay panicked in bed, drunk at 3:30am, drafting a mass, "Sorry, have to cancel," email was a good thing. It got that major panic out of my system. I think it had to manifest, and I'm terribly glad it did two days before, rather than the day of or, even worse, during!

On my way out to the store to pick up spinchoniongarlicdip fixin's, there was a box sitting in the hot sun on the stoop. A long rectangular box.

A flower box.

I brought it in, curiosity piqued.

It was a huge bouquet of white rosebuds, ready to pop and bloom, sent by my childhood piano teacher Shirley from California, with this note:

Dear Todd,

This is what you were put on this planet for. Play that piano! I am there in spirit tonight. Much love and pride,
Shoil

Of course I was crying all the way to Rouse's after that!

The rest of the afternoon as I Hoovered and tidied and did dishes and fussed around, I kept thinking, when will the panic set in?

People began arriving. I was happy, not panicked, to see them. It felt like just a bunch of friends hanging out for a cocktail party in my house — nothing I haven't done a dozen times before.

When the actual time to blink the house lights and get everyone seated and quiet came, I confess some nervousness overtook me, but it was manageable, rational nervousness, and not the crippling fear of a phobia — the irrational response to a commonplace situation. I accepted and dealt with that natural nervousness in stride.

My hands were shaking a tiny bit for the first few short Préludes, but there was so much love in the room, and I gauged, after three pages of (relatively, for what was to follow) simple music, that my efforts were well received, and that people weren't just being polite.

Then I hit my stride. I fell into the Hole and the music took over me. And what astounded me more than my lack of nervousness throughout the day, was that I played better for these lovely people. I could glean a vibe in the room (or so I imagined), feel the mood that was being created not just for me, as it always has been when I play alone, but the mood of 25 other people. And my interpretation and execution of Chopin took their biorhythms into consideration and my playing has never sounded better to me than last night. I'll have to watch the tape that Paul so thoughtfully manned last night to be sure, but I really think I shined.

Do you understand what I'm telling you? That playing for people improved my aptitude? What the FUCK is THAT about? I thought I'd be lucky to scrape through the night without too many technical errors, and that the evocative emotion inherent in this particular composer would have to be left by the wayside in favor of just struggling through the night. Au contraire, mon frère. My playing truly shined. I couldn't believe what was coming out of my fingers.

I structured two intermissions into the night — one quick one, just to get people to refill their glasses (the more you drink, the better I sound!), and give their ears a break, and one proper intermission for smoking, talking, eating, etc.

At the first minimission, three people confessed they had been crying. And I hadn't even started on the Nocturnes yet.

At the second intermission, I think there were only three people in the house who weren't crying, and as I announced to my gracious audience, if I live through a day without making someone cry, it was no day to wake up to.

I finished with a badly-interpreted Valse Brilliante in A-flat — the only clinker of the night, but it's so fast, so loud and so showy, I don't think many people recognized my errors. I got a standing ovation. I've never had one of those before. It was truly a bit unreal. I just simpered an idiotic smile. The moment was too foreign and wonderful for me to comprehend at the time.

Since these were my friends, I was suspicious about the standing ovation. I interviewed a few people separately, thanking them for being polite about the standing ovation bit.

"That was NOT politeness!" was the unanimous reply.

After the party broke up, midnightish, I wandered over to One Eye'd Jacks where many of my guests had moved on to. Candace was there. She had taken the night off to come see me, and said that it's the most wonderful night she'd had in ten years. And she's inspired to sing. And wants me to help organized a singing recital of Roberta Flack and Dionne Warwick songs.

Sean said she was inspired to start up Salon Nights again.

Eric Laws, likewise, felt inspired to have a do.

And that makes me the happiest yet. That my efforts have inspired others to follow suit.

I think we're going to have a good summer in New Orleans.

I've got a lot of little thinnngs to do today in preparation for tonight's recital. But I must take my soothing little smoke breaks and read my book from time to time to calm my nerves, which are very high-strung at the moment.

Strangely a line from the book I'm reading at the moment did more to calm me down than any pill could have done. The line comes from the book Murder in the Rue Ursulines by the inimitable Mr. scottynola. In it, the narrator is talking himself down from a panic attack as he's sitting in his parked car. It's a simple line, but worked like a magic elixir upon my frazzled brain:

"So, stop thinking about it. Don't worry about it. There's nothing you can do to change anything at this point anyway."

I heard DAT!

And I'm cool now. (Until people start arriving.)

(BTW, Greg, did you not receive my little invitation a few weeks ago? There's still room for you, dear, if the evening's entertainment is something not distasteful to you.)

I found his book just below the Castro (natch) on Market St. in San Francisco last week. Ben and I had a rare afternoon with no obligations, and we spent the day walking SF's equivalent of a Fruit Loop.

The bookstore we visited was chock-a-block on the shelves, but I was happy to see Greg got some lateral real estate on the shelf.

( iPhone snap of the bookshelf. )

I picked up Ursulines and read the back cover. "Ooo! Ben!" I squealed like a nelly old thang, "This is his new one! We have to get this."

"Ooo! Squee!" he nellied back at me.

I wandered around the store a little longer. Some typical San Francisco super-buff, chiseled, 20-something A-gay looked at the book I was holding. "Oh, I love that guy!" he said, smiling.

I looked at his upper body straining through his Gold's Gym tank and managed to refrain from replying, "And he'd love you right back, big boy. Believe me."

I would like, if I may be so presumptuous, to excerpt a particularly amusing bit that endeared both this book and its author to me even more. I sincerely hope some tech geek runs with this idea and creates the game. (If it's in poor taste to excerpt this much of a book, I can take it down at once.)

The narrator is at his tech friend's house, who is working on programming a new video game.

I looked at the computer screen and recognized Tourist Season, his latest game. In it, the player walked through the streets of the French Quarter with an automatic weapon. You got points for killing tourists doing things they shouldn't. But if the tourist was just walking along doing nothing wrong, you lost points for shooting them. You also lost points for killing locals. The more horrible the tourist, the more points you got. For example, if you shot a tourist taking a piss on the street, it was worth two thousand points. Shooting the couple having sex in public was worth five thousand points. Blowing away the jerk throwing trash in the street was only a thousand points.
...I took aim and shot at a woman running across Burgundy Street pushing a baby in a stroller in front of her as a car slammed on its brakes. As the woman's head exploded, I said, "Um, this game is kind of sick."
...A man and a woman were copulating in a doorway. I aimed, fired, and they both exploded. Five thousand points! In spite of myself, I grinned in satisfaction. Everyone in New Orleans is going to want to play this game, I thought to myself. "You know, you're probably right about this game," I said as I took aim at another drunken tourist, this one staggering out in the road carrying a forty-eight ounce daiquiri cup and wearing a feather boa. BLAM! Another twenty-five hundred points. "It's kind of addicting." I fired at a car with MICHIGAN plates crawling along at about five miles an hour while everyone in the car gawked at the buildings going by. It exploded, body parts flying everywhere, giving me another ten thousand points.
..."The New Orleans Tourism Board would probably pay you not to put this on the market," I added, aiming at a couple of girls in sorority sweatshirts puking in a gutter. I missed, and shot a woman walking her dog on the other side of the street. I lost ten tousand points. Locals were worth a lot more than tourists.

Amen to that!

I particularly appreciate the part about if a tourist is doing nothing wrong, you lose points for shooting him. It's not that we hate tourists. Au contraire. I quite like meeting out-of-town people, and I think even the dimmest local realizes the economic advantage of having tourists. It's just the Bourbon Street drunks we cannot suffer lightly.

Anyway, it's a marvelous book, and you should trample the homeless in your mad dash to buy a copy.

Now, back to my fretting and rending.

Text I received a little after midnight on Tuesday — technically half an hour into 17 June: Think I'm gonna stay in tonight. Love u. Happy anniversary!

I read this text disparagingly to many of my bar patrons, prefaced with a, "This is from my useless husband. Who lives, I might add, all of 50 feet from the bar, and it's just 12:00."

I wasn't really angry. I don't expect anyone, not even my husband-elect, to hang out in a bar just because I'm working there.

I showed him the text the next day and even he said, "Yah, maybe I should have included the 'happy annivarsary!' in another text."

Six years yesterday. I can say it. I can write it. But I can't understand it. How have six years flowed under the Mississippi Bridge since the night some random guy named "Ben" whom I met at The Pub of all places (GAH!) took me back to his hotel room at the then-Wyndham for a sleazy hook-up? Who, later, while he was in the shower and I was wandering aimlessly around the room, and as I came across a pile of mail and noticed it was addressed to "George," I thought, a fake name? He gave me a fake name? Who DOES that? Jeezus Keee-ryst! How … 1994.

I ended up spending the night in that hotel room — a gay one-night-stand no-no that tops the list of fag etiquette. The next morning we woke up together, renewed our sleazy hook-up, and even went out for coffee at the Rue de la Course which in 2003 occupied a space on N. Peters across from Canal Place.

He fucked off back to Nashville, but I couldn't get him out of my mind.

We IM'd for the next month or so, him working at home in the day, me working graves, so I was on my computer during the day. These were hour long IM seshes and we pried and probed into each others' lives with candor and alarming frankness. A month or so later The Hideout closed, I had to get out of town, and invited myself to stay with him in Tennessee — perhaps the number one Trick No-No on the etiquette list.

The rest, as they say, is history. He was either in NOLA or I was in Nashville. Soon after, he moved down here. Took a house near mine off Fourth St. in the Garden Dist. We could see each others' balconies. I didn't have a cell phone in those days. I suggested running a string with two tin cans.

Soon after that we saw, fell in love with, and bought Clifford and moved in together, despite the young, budding stage of our relationship. I had only had one boyfriend before. When he moved in, a year and a half into our relationship, that's when everything turned sour. It was a risky move to not only move in with Ben, but buy property together — and my first-time homeowner experience at that.

Now it's 2009. And despite my chiding last night, "My new name for you is going to be Library Book. It's six years. You're way overdue. I should really take you back. This is getting expensive," I really couldn't imagine being with anyone else. Or being without him.

Yesterday afternoon marrus left me a VM: I'm at Green Goddess for lunch. Come meet me!

I texted back: Saving my cal-intake 4 Commanders 2nite, but thx 4 inviting me!

Then Ben left a VM: Come meet me and Marrus and Gwen at Green Goddess!

I can't fight three wily bitches. I went.

While they had humble (but still amazing) salads, I decided my strict diet suddenly allowed pulled pork on a jalapeño corn flapjack. Which is like god cumming in your mouth, believe me.

A few hours later, besuited in frippery and finery, we hauled up to Commander's Palace, where everyone seems to know us now, and had an incredible dinner over a bottle of Trefethen Chardonnay. (Ben: Andouille gumbo, the Crystal shrimp Henican in the five-pepper jelly which is his favorite dish on earth, the veal in an oil-black, sticky balsamic reduction and banana shortcake. Me: turtle soup, the poached egg and artichoke tart and crème brûlée, the best in the world because the understand the simple secret to a good brûlée: surface area!)

On the way out I reserved a table for six for Thanksgiving. Mom, cousin Bergen, perhaps my brother and perhaps an aunt or two are coming to New Orleans later this year. I'm going to recreate last year: racetrack in the morning, dressed as if going to the Ascot, then Commander's for dinner.

Ben and I left CP for an after-dinner Laphroaig at The Saint. Then more cocktails at 700 Club. A bit too much drinking for both of us, but hey, you're only six once.

The dynamics for me at the latter bar have changed. It used to be my local hang-out spot. Now I walk in and the people sitting at the bar are my regulars, even though I've only worked there a week. Everyone feels they own a piece of me and won't leave me alone. I got out of unwanted conversations by sticking my tongue down Ben's throat.

Matt told Ben, to my great horror, how he sees me when Ben's out of town: "Todd's lost without you," he said smirking evilly. "I saw him last Saturday. He floated in like an airplane crash victim, had one drink. Didn't talk to anyone. Stared blankly at the ceiling. Wandered around with amnesia, then floated out the door." Actually, this description is very apt. That's exactly how I felt on Saturday, and often feel when Ben's out of town.

Eventually we went home. I couldn't sleep. Started sweating out my Friday night shindig. Was trying to picture how to play the first Prélude and couldn't remember the notes. Got up in the middle of the night to try to play it. Horribly mess. I began a mass email to all my friends telling them I'm sorry but I'm going to have to cancel. Then I remembered that I was fucking DRUNK, hell-OHHH!, and that I can't play fucking Chopsticks when I'm drunk. I took a Xanax and conked out.

Here's our pre-dinner shot, me holding up my A.A. Milne book, "Now We Are Six."

I'm as nervous as a long-tailed polecat in a room full of rocking chairs. Friday is the first (and possibly last) hard-core piano recital I've ever thrown in my 30 years of dabbling away at that instrument. An hour's worth of complicated Chopin is making my poor, simple country head swim.

I'm also a little flustered about attendance.

If you've received a mailed invite and have not RSVP'd, I would be much obliged if you would do so now. A simple "Yes, please!" or, "No, sorry, can't make it," will do in the comments here.

I'm a little afraid I've overbooked the capacity for the rooms, but I'll do my best to make everyone comfortable. At this point I am NOT overbooked, but there are too many people who have not RSVP'd, so the logistics are still up in the air.

Needless to say, plus-ones are, I regret, not possible this Friday. So please leave your cousin from Albuquerque or your trick of the night safely tucked into their favorite bar down the street, if you plan on attending. Your plus-ones are, however, entirely welcome to join us at the after-party, from 11pm on, which will still be at Manderley.

If you are coming, and if you have an extra folding chair that's very easy to move and will not cause you undue struggles or troubles, I will be your eternal slave if you could tote that along as well. I have a great number of chairs in the house, plus the couch, plus the barstools, but in the event that I've overbooked, extra chairs mean extra chairs.

marrus said to me last night, when she came to see me at 700 Club and I asked if she is coming on Friday, "What's Friday?" Apparently she did not even receive the invitation. I'm wondering how many others were lost in the mail.

If we're good friends and you suspect I would have mailed you an invite, but you never received one, please let me know.

Although I'm horribly nervous, I'm also really looking forward to this, and I hope that others will take up my cue and we could have a circuit of formal Salon Nights around town where this or that person will play the instrument of their choosing, read from their own books, display their art, or otherwise make an exhibition of themselves for the appreciation and enlightenment of friends. Plus, it's always a nice thing to have a chance to wear one's Sunday Best.

The good part is that I will write about things before I go to bed when things are still fresh in my mind.

The bad part is that it's 5:30am and I'm kinda buzzed; both of these facts may impact the [ahem] quality [ahem] of my writing, but at least I'm still sober and awake enough to know when to use a semicolon, so it can't all be bad. At.

Of.

I walked in the bar around 8:30. Cute Little Paul was waiting for me to relieve him — in a strictly professional sense, I mean. Don't get funny.

"At least Mr. Fusspot isn't here," I observed merrily, yawning myself awake. "I'll be very surprised if he shows up tonight after the damage he incurred last night."

I went into the office to set up my music play list. When I came out, I found Mr. Fusspot sitting in his usual spot. I rolled my eyes at Cute Little Paul. He rolled his back at me.

Before I was even behind the bar, the whining and whinging began: "Tahhhhhd. Hey Tahhhhhhd! Aren't you going to talk to meeeee?"

I realized we were at a crucial, pivotal point in our relationship and that a new precedent needed to be set. In some ways I was grateful to Mr. Fusspot for the annoyances he put me through on Monday night. They acted as the kick in the ass I needed to get my groove back. It's been five years, don't forget. And even riding a bike after such a long hiatus can take a few moments of reacclimatizationismitudeiferousness. (Hmm. Spellcheck is underlining that.)

Upon pondering the excesses and mistakes of my Monday night in the relative safety and quietude of Tuesday afternoon, there was a mild eureka moment when I remembered, "Oh, thaaat's right! I'M in control of things — not the other way around. Okay. Tonight will be better."

I adopted my Mom's Mad face — a face I haven't had to put on in half a decade, but one which works wonders with the Drunk and the Insipid.

I pointed an accusing finger at Mr. Fusspot, halting his next whiny iteration of my name peppered with too many vowels mid-breath.

"Mr. Fusspot. We need to talk."

"Well, you can make me a drink while we're talking."

"That's what we're going to talk about," I said, a monologue gushing forth on the fly. "I will make you one drink. If you're especially good, I may make you two, but that's all you'll get from me. Do you know why?"

Before he could open his mouth, I continued, "Because I won't be visiting that place you took us all to last night. Your behavior was rude and unacceptable." A poignant adjective came back to me in a flash of inspiration. The word that stops all arguments and machetes neatly through further recalcitrance.

I've learned that vituperation is not the answer; it only riles the opponent. Compromise is impossible with the Drunken or Idiotic, just as it is with the far right. But there's a word that cuts like a hot knife through butter that everyone responds to, especially when delivered with my patented Mom's Mad look.

The word?

"Mr. Fusspot, I was very disappointed in you last night."

This word is best followed by a long pause to let the gravity set in. Disappointment implies an erstwhile respect, and a wish to rekindle that lost, cherished trait. It removes the cliché emotion of anger from an equation, and lets in a little love (real or sham is irrelevant for my purposes). When used properly, disappointment can cut to the quick.

My arrow found its mark. Mr. Fusspot clamped his jaw shut with an audible click of the teeth. The shoulders bowed. The eyebrows raised in a pout. Bad kitty, and he knew it.

"So here's how it's going to roll from now on," I continued, once his desired submissive body language was delivered unto me. "You're going to attempt to be as respectful to me as I have been to you. You're going to do exactly as I say. You're going to leave off bullying others or getting up people's noses when in my presence. I am going to make a series of rules for you, because you're on probation. These rules are mutable, and can be imposed or relinquished at my discretion with no explanation due to you. These are the ground rules. If you are uncomfortable with any of them, you're free to find another watering hole, or come back on some other poor sucker's shift. Me, I'm not having one more moment of your trite bullshit. Are we crystal clear, Mr. Fusspot?"

"But…" he began. I held up a finger.

"Are we entirely clear?"

A wordless nod.

Over the next couple of hours there were some breaches of etiquette, which I quashed as quickly as he could deal them, with a faux-tormented, disappointed, "What did we talk about earlier? Who's a bad kitty?"

Eventually he left. I'll be interested to see how he behaves in front of me in the future. He's such an exceptionally sad character that this little drama does actually interest me in some morbid way. If it didn't, I would have 86'd him entirely without the long rule-laying soliloquy.

The rest of the night was more or less enjoyable. marrus came by and lightened my mood immeasurably. An aside to those who wish to annoy her: play Weird Al Yankovic videos. Who knew she was so allergic!

Paul's in town from London for the twenty-seventh time this year, bless his jetlagged soul, and it's always a joy to look up from a task and see his face. Other friends and good regulars kept me company for most of the night as well. It's good to have allies.

The few undesirables were dispatched with the same Mom's Mad countenance, and it felt good to be back in my old, comfortable, bitchy groove. I had quite forgotten lo these last five years how kick-ass I can actually be when necessary.

I learned these skills at The Hideout originally. It was fitting, and entirely random and unlikely, that Leila, my old boss and owner of said establishment, happened by and spent an hour with me. "I had no idea you worked in a bar again!"

"I don't!" I said, hugging her.

I'm not saying I want to wear this hat again for any extended amount of time, but it's fun to play dress-up again for a minute.

What is this THING on my gardenia 'tree'?

I've never seen anything like it.

A caterpillar with diagonal, leaf-mimicking striations? And a fuzzy tail!? A caterpillar with a tail!?

What IS this thing? What will it turn into? A Geigeresque behemoth butterfly with the wingspan of a paperback book? I noticed some wispy pieces of silk blowing around him. I'm hopin' he's fissin' to pupate where he is so I can keep an eye on him.

The diagonal markings look exactly like a fresh gardenia leaf unfurling, leading me to posit that he lives off gardenia bushes. Is there such a creature? He's the only one I could find on the bush. This is not an infestation.

docbrite? Any idea? You're good with garden critters.

Here he is hanging upside-down from a stalk. The out-of-focus pink things on the left are his little leaf-munching teefs.

( And speaking of nature invading my space... )

I was talking to mom the other night. She was asking what I was going to do for my 40^th. "Dunno yet," I said, "but I know I'll have better hair than you did at 40. Man, that was some nasty 80s crap, mom."

"What are you talking about!? I had cute hair in 1981!"

"Mom. I have a photo. Not even Florence Henderson was doing what you were doing with your hair."

"Oh that's a bunch of malarkey. I was so cute that night, and my hair was cute too."

"All right then. I'll scan the picture and send it to you and you can be the judge."

I found the picture I was thinking of, taken on her 40^th birthday in 1981, but it wasn't the picture I was thinking of. Her hair is not a hot 80s mess in this picture. I sent the picture with an apology: "My bad. You're truly adorable. It must have been 1976 I was thinking of. And anyway, I'm not one to cast stones. I found the attached picture of me on a beach in 1981. My hairdo can best be described as 'Lego Snap-On'. I look like a spinny thing at the car wash that scrubs the windows as the car gets dragged by on a chain."

( Hair cuteness and hair horrors here... )

I'm not sure if this is regression or progress. One side of the coin says you can't go back to a profession which you burned out on. The flip side reminds me in acute, painful angles that I'm not doing anything and have no source of income.

Anyway, it's temporary. For now.

I'm working three graves (9p to at least 4a) a week at 700 Club throughout June, and possibly a little of July. The point of this stint is so Matthew, my friend and one of the owners and the usual Sun–Tues late night bartender, can attend to some behind-the-scenes administrative overhauling, as he can't get his work done and babysit a bunch of drunks for ten hours a night.

He wanted me for four nights a week. I had to draw the line, with apologies and humility, saying three might already be stretching it for me. It's been five years since I've been a full-time bartender. I didn't want to burn out again after only a few weeks of filling in.

By and large, it's been fun. 700 Club is a great place, and attracts the "right" kind of people … for the most part. Although I've worked in more bars than I can presently recall, I've never worked a gaybar (one word, always). It's a mixed blessing. It's nice to be amongst "my" people (whatever the hell that means), and my nigh-forty-year-old self finds shallow but delectable pleasure in being fawned over and wooed by a room full of queens. (There's a magic starfucker thing that happens when you're on the other side of a dimly lit bar — go figger.)

It's also reawakening memories of the reasons I left the bar biz. Sometimes the ones hitting on you are not the ones you'd exactly choose for the task. And sometimes "no" seems to mean "try harder — and louder" to some addled minds.

Last night was uh-fucking-noying. Asshole factor creeping near 10%. Considering I dealt with about 200 people last night, that means about 20 of them were assholes to varying degrees.

There's Mr. Fusspot, a local and regular, who likes to think he owns the space he occupies (without in any wise having any sort of clarity of The Space One Inhabits — some people really just can't hear themselves!). He's moneyed, allegedly, but a bored, broken-down, middle-aged drunk. He buys lots of drinks — for lots of people — tips well, but dealing with him is to play a pawn in his insipid little power struggle games.

His drink is obstreperously complicated and "shaken 67 times. Don't cheat. I'm counting." He heckles the entire time I'm making the drink. "This one better be good." "When is it ever not, Mr. Fusspot?"

He's constantly vying for more power — more leverage — and the way he believes he achieves this is to make people conform to his insipid whims. "Can I have exactly seven ice cubes?" I throw down a cup full of ice: "You're welcome to count them out yourself," I smile a pained rictus at him.

"I want to buy that cute boy a six pack of beer. But I want it presented properly. Put the beers in a six-pack holder and pack it with ice."

"The ice won't fit."

"It will if you try hard enough."

"You do it."

"This is your job."

"No, my job is to kick you out when you're rude. But I'm not very good at my job, apparently."

The fussy fusspot McFusserpants iced six pack is presented to the clueless 21 year old who, bewildered, declares, "Uh, thanks. But I don't want that much beer."

"You HAVE to take it!" says Mr. Fusspot, thinking he's now earned the right to jostle and fondle the wee lad.

I don't care about my own abuses from his veneer, petty mind, but I won't have him foisting his odiousness on innocent bystanders. "No, he doesn't have to have anything he doesn't want. And it's presumptuous and déclassée to impose yourself in this manner."

Eventually (muuuuch later), I sent him home. I had to argue with the cabbie to take him at all. "Oh no! Not him! He's too drunk!"

"No, he's totally fine. I swear."

Okay, so there's that.

Then there's Gwen's new boyfriend, whom I silently named "Problo", in the sense that this little Mexicanish man was going to be a "problemo" from the moment he ordered a "tonic and soda," not realizing that's not even a drink.

Miss Gwen wrote up the story of his "lucid" conversation quite nicely right here. My experience with him was quieter, yet even more annoying.

The epilogue to her story goes like this: he passed out. Hard. I lifted his head up by the hair. I pulled up his eyelids to find only lolling whites. Drool coated his chin and the bar. A steady stream of, "Urnghhhh," emitted from his larynx. I have a pretty strict rule about sleepers at my bar; I won't have them. But face slapping got no response. Yelling in his ear was useless. I decided to let him sleep for awhile and try to get rid of him later.

30 minutes later, same non-responsiveness.

An hour later he began to stir. Oh good, I thought, maybe he'll just fuck off of his own volition. Yah. Fat chance. He clumsily maneuvered his way under the bar and made to curl up on the floor, at which point I recruited Ben to help me physically drag him out of the bar, which was a chore, but we got it done somewhat quickly.

I went back inside to deal with more problems. I turned around and saw Ben yelling at him on the front stoop, "No, zip your pants up. You're not peeing on the door."

Problo (and, thanks to Gwen, I now know his name was "Pablo." Bwah!) stumbled off down the street and I washed my hands of him.

Until some chirpy little queen bounded in and announced happily, "You know there's some drunk Mexican asleep in the trash next to your bar."

"Oh. Yah. That's Problo. Thanks buddy."

The night dragged on. Bit by bit the asshole factor waned until it was just me, my friend Keith, Ben, Paul, and a nice guy in town from Mobile who was my new ally and receptacle of my irate ventings. Finally, an asshole-free environment! We played Wii bowling. We drank. We had a good time. That's as it should be.

Come 4am, the earliest that the bar will close, I was ready to close. I locked the door with one patron still inside, a waiter from downtown who recognized me from going to his restaurant from time to time. "I've always found you so attractive," confessed this self-confessed bi-but-mostly-into-women fellow.

"Well, shucks," I said, cleaning ashtrays and trying to get out of there.

"Can I kiss you?"

"Come back when you're sober," I said cruelly.

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm finally getting around to reading John Barry's Rising Tide — The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.

Guess I just haven't been in That Special Mood to read about the flooding of the South in the last few years. I know, weird, huh? But it leaped off the shelf at me yesterday when I was looking for The Next Thing.

One of the blurb-reviews cited on the cover says, "…has the potential to change the way we think." Look, I knowwww that cherry-picked reviews printed on a book's cover are going to be hyperbolic, but I thought that was even laying it on a bit thick.

"Oh, you're going to 'change the way I think', are you? Well. We'll just see about that. Harumph. And harumph again."

I think I've been avoiding this book, which has been happily gathering dust on my shelf for several years, because I know my aptitude for engineering is pretty nigh zilch, and the minutia of arcane politics, unless especially saucy in their anecdotes, leaves me cold bored.

What I've found, however, is that perhaps I'm not as much of a Luddite as I blithely supposed. Oh. Engineering, insofar as river tweaking, is based on velocity, slope and sediment load? Kay, I can follow that, I guess. And a "levee" is the same thing as a "dike"? Well that makes sense. Dykes are often found wearing Levy's. Coincidence? (Sorry. Had to.)

I knew the Mississippi River down at this end was the product of innumerable tributaries, but the scope of just where all this water is coming from astounded me when I looked at the map.

Minnesota? Of course. Makes sense. Denver? Really? And as far west as Helena, Montana and as far north as almost Calgary? That I did not know. And as far northeast as the Finger Lakes in central New York? MY Finger Lakes?

The map blew my simple, wee country head wide open. ( Take a look. )

Learning some basics about the nature and physics of rivers was more enjoyable reading that I had ever imagined, and the anomalies of the Lower Mississippi (from Cairo, IL on down) is truly fascinating.

I had to put the book down and chew my nails for a bit.

A couple excerpts, my comments in square brackets:

But the complexity of the Mississippi exceeds that of nearly all other rivers. Not only is it acted upon [re: levee building, spillways, and other man-made tailoring]; it acts. It generates its own internal forces through its size, its sediment load, its depth, variations in its bottom, its ability to cave in the riverbank and slide sideways for miles, and even tidal influences [uh, that's freaking lunar pulls on this beyotch!], which affect it as far north as Baton Rouge. Engineering theories and techniques that apply to other rivers, even such major rivers as the Po, the Rhine, the Missouri, and even the upper Mississippi, simply do not work on the lower Mississippi, which normally runs far deeper and carries far more water. In 1993, for example, the floodwaters that overflowed, with devastating result, the Missouri and upper Mississippi put no strain on the levees along the lower Mississippi.

The Mississippi never lies at rest. It roils. It follows no set course. Its waters and currents are not uniform. Rather, it moves south in layers and whorls, like an uncoiling rope made up of a multitude of discrete fibers, each one following an independent and unpredictable path, each one separately and together capable of snapping like a whip. It never has one current, one velocity. Even when the river is not in flood, one can sometimes see the surface close by, while the water swirls about, as if trying to devour itself. Eddies of gigantic dimensions can develop, sometimes accompanied by great spiraling holes in the water. Humphreys [19^th c. Army Corp of E. man] observed an eddy "running upstream at seven miles an hour and extending half across the river, whirling and foaming like a whirlpool."

The river's sinuosity itself generates enormous force. The Mississippi snakes seaward in a continual series of S curves that sometimes approach 180° [like when it hits the French Quarter]. The collision of river and earth at these bends creates tremendous turbulence: currents can drive straight down to the bottom of the river, sucking at whatever lies on the surface, scouring out holes often several hundred feet deep. Thus the Mississippi is a series of deep pools and shallow "crossings," and the movement of water from depth to shallows adds still further force and complexity.

And the last 450 miles of the Mississippi's flow, the riverbed lies below sea level — 15 feet below sea level at Vicksburg, well over 170 feet below sea level at New Orleans. For this 450 miles the water on the bottom has no reason to flow at all. But the water above it does. This creates a tumbling effect as water spills over itself, like an enormous ever-breaking internal wave. This tumbling effect can attack a riverbank—or a levee—like a buzz saw.

I knew our river was deep and strong. But the magnitude of it had never been properly explained to me

I see the Mississippi River almost every day. It's four blocks from Manderley. But had I ever really looked at it?

I left the house with the book and walked down to the cathedral and through Jax Sq., up the levee and down the wooden steps, soaking my feet in the river as it lapped up over the step — this water coming from three time zones and hundreds of thousands of square miles in all directions.

This is a familiar sight for me. I know what the West Bank looks like from the Quarter. The river is no wider than my tiny Y-shaped Keuka in the Finger Lakes of New York, which is also hundreds of feet deep, being a glacial lake. But that lake lacks the mammoth power of the Mississippi. I began to notice anomalies in the water. The wooden post that marked the end of the steps was submerged, but the water there was, indeed, traveling upstream, and rather quickly. Foaming whitecaps popped up in the middle of the river, then seemed to be sucked down violently as if grabbed by a hand. Suddenly, everything around my step was calm. The water dropped ten inches. I moved down another step. Twenty minutes later, the water was up two steps from where I began, and flowing downriver instead of up. I threw a cigarette butt into the water to watch where it went. It hung around my foot for awhile, then zipped five feet out and traveled downriver. It disappeared suddenly as a current sucked it down, then popped up like a fish five feet away. Fifteen minutes later, the same cigarette floated past my feet going upstream.

Seas and rivers are often referred to as living, sentient beings, but I've never given the matter much thought. My convenient little four-block field trip today did, in fact, change the way I think to some degree, so the book's hyperbolic boastings are justified. I've never felt the river so alive before today. Honestly, it's a bit scary, and the walk home seemed way too short — too close to far too much power with a whimsical, unpredictable mind of its own.

And yet it was never more beautiful to me than this afternoon. Beauty due to the awe and respect this huge snake warrants.

This is how I imagine the conversation went:

Walmart Employee: "Hello 'dis be Walmarts. Ahka hep you?"

Customer: "I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week."

Walmart Employee: "Whatchoo want on dat cake, hoanay?"

Customer: "'Best Wishes Suzanne', and underneath that, 'We will miss you'."

Walmart Employee: "Aieet. Dat be sisteen-fitty-fo. Be ready in uh ow-ah."

Ahhh, to be home. A remarkable journey was spent in SF this week, and undying nods of acknowledgment and vomitous pourings of love go to our hostessatrix, qfu, not to mention the scads of de-lovelies whom I value most in my friendship.

But now, home is where I'm at, in all sorts of senses of the phrase.

Ah home. My nice^*, quiet^**, clean^*** home!

^*Not really. See below.
^**The cat is howling with love-negligence.
^***She has also decided that she doesn't like the catbox, and has spent the last five days shitting and pissing on my duvet. The sheets are in the wash. The duvet, too large to fit in the machine, was shaken of its multitude of coiled turds, into the street. (Hey, I have fucking PAID for that spurious weekly street cleaning a thousand times over with tickets and tows.) It was then moved to the side gallery awaiting a decision on what must be done. Spend $40 to have it professionally cleaned, or call it a loss and toss it out. My hand-stitched quilt is also marinated in all sorts of cat effluvium. Half a bottle of Nature's Miracle, a stick of incense, and an entire bottle of Febreeze is not beginning to chip away at the aromatic wall that smashes one in the face when walking into the back of the house. I think tonight we may be sleeping in the Mom Room, despite our erstwhile energetic excitement culled from the simple joy of returning to one's own home — one's own bed. Thanks Harley. Thanks so much. I love you, but there are limits to my affection and attachment. Tomorrow I will take everything out of the ShitShack™, scrub, disinfect and deodorize the little annexed room, and perhaps you won't be afraid of it any more. Le sigh.

THUMP! THUMP! from the ceiling to the basement where Ben and I sleep. It's our alarm clock for the last two days.

Today was harder to wake to, in large part due to my screaming back and neck pain. I wanted to sleep all day. But that's not an option when there are so many plans.

Friday was über-lovely. Meeting my Sepulchritude friends at a divebar on Market St. The thought crossed my mind: I skipped my 20 yr. high school reunion without a blink, but this reunion is important.

Today, rushed as I was, was worth the frenetics. A leisurely breakfast and coffee at Café Flore, then a walk through the Mission to Dolores Park where we set up shop and consumed six bottles of wine + a tin of hummus + stinky cheeses. Meeting new friends, two of which we sincerely hope will come stay with us at Southern Decadence in early September. Drinks on an illegal rooftop bar, and a dinner in the Mission Dist. Winifred throwing up in the street on our way back to the car. I drove home because I'm the most sober. "Do you know how to drive a stick?" she asked. "It's all I can drive," I replied.

More wine at home.

A perfect, perfect day. If I could spend every day with the people whose company entered into my life, I would think more highly of San Francisco.

Instead, I can only recall the one cunt in Sonoma Co. who said to me with eyes closed and nose stuck up in the air, "We don't smoke, here."

The Smug Storm from South Park became bitterly poignant.

There is so much to love about San Francisco. And there is so much to purge. The overall level of sanctimoniousness prohibits me ever living here again, and yet there is so much fodder for me here as well.

There is no utopia.

We've been in SF for about 24 hours now, and it has been extremely pleasant, due entirely (thus far) to the effervescence of qfu, our merry hostess.

Ben and I have a small checklist of things we want to do. That Ethiopian restaurant on the Lower Haight was one item, so we had dinner there last night. I used to eat there all the time, but it's been about 15 years. The food hasn't changed a bit. Just as delicious as I remembered, tearing off squares of spongy injera bread and sopping up the mushroomy/garlicky/beefy/spinachy goo. Just spicey enough to keep your tongue tantalized, but not so far as fanning an open palm in front of the mouth.

After-dinner drinks at Noc Noc, a block down. This funky dive bar was one of my old haunts when I lived in SF from '91–'96. I think it opened around '92, actually.

Odd realization as I sat in my old haunt: in my early adulthood I elected to live in many places — London, D.C., San Fran, upstate NY, New Orleans, etc. And although I spent more time in San Francisco than any other city (besides NOLA, obv.), SF is the one city that I feel no connection to. Yes, I have tons of memories which come flooding back as Winifred drives up past this restaurant, that bar, or that gingerbread Victorian house. And most of the memories are fond ones. Very fond ones, in truth. But there's no "home" here, whereas Washington, in which I spend not even two years, still feels very much like coming home whenever I visit. As do London, Ithaca, Philly, etc.

So for whatever that's worth.

Today W. drove us up to Sonoma wine country. One of her ex-students works in the lab at the Korbel winery. This sweet girl took almost the entire afternoon off to show us around the wine-works, ending with a tasting. I've been on many wine tours, but never a private one, and never one with a tour guide who will tell us about the children who got trapped in the 20' wooden casks in 1880 and died as they mucked out the spent grape skins.

They still use these old casks. (They were constructed in the old building's basement, and should someone want to move them, there would be no way to extricate them from their home without first disassembling them.) And the thought that each glass of "champagne" (as they erroneously call their sparkling wine) might be tinged with the tears of a dying Victorian-era child just makes the wine that much tastier to me. Call me Mason Verger.

Our tour guide let us buy stuff in the shop with her 50% discount, so you know we loaded up on the champers, dahlink, which I will box up and ship home when we leave on Monday.

We went to another winery and skipped the tour, choosing to go straight to the tasting. Good stuff there. We loaded up on another $100 worth of good vino.

Napping in the car ride home, peeping one eye open to find the dusty-rose-colored arches of the G.G. Bridge flying by out the window.

A bowl of phó on Geary.

Quiet night with wine and cats at Winifred's.

Tomorrow, a reunion with my much-loved-and-equally-missed co-editors of “Suffering Is Hip” Magazine.

Further things on our list: Dim sum, gaybars (SOMA or Castro, no matter which), a proper burrito in the Mission Dist. Other things that elude me at the moment.

Of course an hour before we left for the airport, I threw my back out, and have spent each moment in rather excrutiating pain. Marrus? Got any more candy for me, dear? I will pay in cash and tears of gratitude.

Well, back to wine o'clock. More as it unspools.

Hello, friends on the Wrong Coast!

Ben and I will be in your fair borough from Wednesday through the weekend. I think it's the weekend anyway. Four or five days. Or such.

We'll be shacking up at qfu's cozy hidey-hole.

Hoping that blastmilk, poisonpen and Bat will be amenable to a Du Nordian convergence, whether or not in the original venue is beside the point.

Hoping also to see a few other much-missed friends and bitches.

À bientôt!

Ben and I have decided that although we're 40 year old men, we don't necessarily have to look like it. I see no reason why we shouldn't cheat death.

It's amazing how the 40 y.o. male body and its newly diminished metabolism looooves to build you a spare tire around the waist where there never was one before.

For me, this is completely unacceptable because I have a beautiful wardrobe filled mainly with severely-Italian-cut clothing. When you instruct your Hong Kong Tailor that you want your dress shirts fitted, or your coats "almost corseted," or when you buy off-the-rack clothes then dart the side seams yourself to create the triangle shape you enjoy, a spare tire confounds this geometry and the buttons at the abdomen stretch in a manner that does not call to mind the word "becoming."

It is to this effect, and a recent mild chastisement from my G.P. that my cholesterol is "a tad high," that I'm changing my diet. As is Ben.

Salads. We're doing salads. Lots of salads. This doesn't have to be sad. Salads can be delicious when you make them properly. Grilled chicken and spinach and radishes and onions and beets are some of my favorite foods.

It also brings Ben and me closer. We rarely eat together unless we have a dinner date. We're generally hungry at different times, and for different things. For the last two or three days, we've gone out for our not-necessarily-sad-little-salads and had lovely lunches together.

In Manderley, I'm the housewife. I do the shopping, repairing, cleaning (or the finding of a housekeeper — ahem). Yesterday, since Ben and I are newly on the same wavelength, he went with me to Metr'y where we filled two carts at Targét, and another cart at Wholier-Than-Thou Foods. This was also novel, and enjoyable, for me. Ben rarely goes to Metr'y with me when my hausfrau duties summon me thither.

It's nice to spend more time with him. Homey, "married" kind of time. Blech. Sounds crap in writing, but the reality is that it's pleasant, and I'm enjoying his company in these new idioms.

I think we'll both enjoy each others' company even more once we're hot again. Rrrow!

Salads. Lots of salads. I refuse to stop tailoring my clothes.

First off, I want you all to behold the great bounty of vodka-booty we've scored at Wii-Wednesdays at 700 Club, where, incidentally, I will be working late nights through most of June. (Owner-Matthew needs to revamp some shit and asked me to be him for the month since he can't bartend and take care of bidnith.)

But I digress. The way it works is this: everyone signs up for Wii Bowling. The top three scores are recorded and go into the finals. The top score of the finals wins the vodka.
Here are our winnings thus far. We're four-for-five, having flubbed it last week.

This week, the local casino kicked us down a couple of Wii game systems, and we're practicing at home so that we may never need to buy vodka again.

One of the most fascinating things about the Wii system is that you can created a "Mii" — a character to your specifications. You can make it look like you, or you can create a monster.

Here's Ben's Mii, named, curiously enough, "Ben." I think you'll agree that for a dummied-down cartoon character, this is a pretty good likeness.

( A few more Mii's, including Ray Nagin,  )

With the advent of Bit Torrent, I might just cancel Netflix. I'm down to exactly zero (Ø) films in my queue — a personal first.

So I went online to grab a few things.

The suggestions are always good for a laugh. This time they're broken up into "genres", I guess you'd call them. But the "genres" leave me scratching my head.

i.e.:

• Independent Thrillers on Blu-Ray — Straightforward enough, right? Wait, it gets weird.
• Suspenseful Movies Starring Keifer Sutherland — A bit specific for a "genre," not to mention unasked-for, but okay, still not that weird.
• Violent Foreign Revenge Movies — This is becoming as sad and specific as fringe fetishes. I've always pitied the poor lads and lasses who can only get off if they're fucking a plushy toy, crunching a palmetto bug/G.I. Joe figure in a stiletto heel, or wearing diapers. Not what I would call a "genre" but…
• Dark Movies About Marriage Based on Real Life — Okay! Okay! Too specific! And how have I been targeted as a lover of dark movies about marriage based on reality? Scaring me a bit now.
• Horror Movies — Phew! Finally. Something I understand.
• Local Favorites for New Orleans, Louisiana — Well, that sounds nice. I did love King Creole after all. Let's see what they've got for us. Ummmm, The Fountain: a man travels through time to find the elixir of youth. Ohhh-kaaaay? Monty Python's Life of Brian. Wow. I never knew that was filmed here. YPF [Young People Fucking]. All right, I do live a block off Bourbon, I'll give them that one. Eurotrip. Someone's taking the "French" in "French Quarter" a little too literally.

Such is the pace of any huge movement that involves informing the uneducated and ridding the puritan masses of their ignorant prejudices.

It's never a quick coup. MLK planted a seed in the 50s which took ten years to germinate and sprout. Civil Rights is a slow-growing, hardwood tree. It's still in its baby stages, but think how far the "dream" has come since its inception in the orations of MLK. And, in the long run, it's better to have these ideas realized in hardwood; not flimsy pine that can be easily sawed down later.

It seems equally slow-going to shift popular, ignorant public opinion about my basic civil right to marry.

Prop 8 was upheld 6 to 1 in California yesterday. The one dissenting vote was accompanied with the old iron-sides argument of, "The majority should not oppress the minority." It's a sturdy argument, but one slow to settle into the minds of the knee-jerk right. MLK, for example, never got to see his dream achieved.

It's depressing, especially coming from a hippy-dippy state like California which is supposed to be historically progressive about stuff. Yesterday was decidedly Three Steps Back for my civil rights.

But there's Massachusetts, Hawaii, the U.K., South Africa, and a handful of other places on the globe that officially recognize same-sex and transgender marriages. Before you start overly ruing the embarrassing event in California yesterday, think how far this new civil rights movement has come in such a short time (three decades?).

I mean, shit, if you can be an openly out sports hero and not have it affect your career, that's miles and miles of progress. Think about it: rednecks watch sports!

It will happen. It's a huge change, and they take awhile to process. It can take so long that the natural progress of time may need to oust the current "ruling" generation, and let the next generation who grew up with less hateful prejudices about homosexuality step in. Yah, yah, that's not quick enough for me either. I really would like to marry my husband-elect^* right now. But despite the shameful behavior of California yesterday, I still see progress. And I see a light at the end of this dark, stupid tunnel.

It will happen.

^* I call Ben my "husband-elect" because he won the popular vote, but he's not in office yet.

I won't say I'm back in it, but I did have a moment of peaceful revelation yestiddy afternoon.

One of my erstwhile Dick-Van-Dyke'y professional incarnations, after accountant, sidewalk artist, tech guru and chimney sweep, was that of Merry Bartender. It was a great way to start out my 30s, and a lovely mode to come home to New Orleans after a two year "oh-my-god-the-vortex-is-gonna-suck-me-down!" fleeing to Philly.

I did that for several years until I met Ben and was dragged kicking and screaming into my most recent profession.

The which what is rather over.

So what's next?

Not bartending. Burnt out on full time. But it is fun from time to time to revisit that space I used to occupy and put on my bartender's hat.

Yesterday there was a private function at The Saint, one of my old alma maters. renlil called and asked if I would work it with her. Rhiannon is to cocktails as chefcdb is to food. Both have an uncanny intuition of what surprising flavors would work together. That, coupled with a robust working knowledge of every obscure liquor (in R's case) or food (in Chris's) extant give these artists all the tools they need to create unique, wonderful feats of alchemy. Of course I'll spend an afternoon working under Rhiannon. Hell, I'd do it for free just to pick her brain.

We opened the back bar (there is a back bar now at The Saint!) with four cocktails, all of which took some training for me to be up to speed.

I should mention that Rhiannon created these drinks more of less on the fly, after having discussed with Owner Jac that the theme is light and summery and refreshing. So she invented an Añejo-Cucumber Hi-Ball, the "Storm in Denmark" which is a caraway liquor with ginger beer and fresh lime juice, the "French Bramble", simple but lovely with Aviation gin, lime and a Chartreuse floater, and the five part Bourbon Black Tea Peach Punch, which was a work in progress early in the afternoon and turned out to be a masterpiece.

Ah, but the revelation. I got distracted recalling Rhiannon's Cocktail Fu. Yes, a mini-revelation on the way to The Saint, driving down the cobbles of Felicity St., thinking, "I'm going to a bartending gig. And tomorrow, I have another one at 700 Club. It's like I live and work in New Orleans again." I felt At Home, for the first time in a long time. Like the familiar cobblestones of Felicity St. belonged to me. The Dat on Magazine where you can buy milk, chips and crack, was MY store. The Saint was MY home (as it once actually was). In short, the excitement of simply living and existing in New Orleans came home to me.

No, I don't think I'm going to be a full-time bartender again, but it is a VERY nice place to visit again. Like going to an old house where you spent your childhood.

On that note, come see me tonight (Mon.) from 9p till very late at 700 Club (700 Burgundy). I'm "training" tonight because I'll be working a lot there in June, filling in for Matthew while he tends to some company revamping.

In other news: Have I mentioned lately that I love Ben's cappuccino machine? I'm drinking a double-shot espresso with steamed chocolate milk that Rickilane left in our fridge. Sweet, bitter, chocolately. And I took your good advice, Kind Reader, and thought of my gardenia tree and dumped this week's spent coffee ground onto its roots for an acidic pick-me-up. Hell, it works on roses.

In other news: On their second day open, I realized I had been to Green Goddess four times, having bullied my way into both of the pre-licensed soft opening nights. See above for my rhapsodic waxings over chefcdb's Culinary Shui. I would like to put this to the Catholics out there: St. de Barr, patron saint of kitchens. Yes, I know, there's probably already a saint who takes care of that room, but that bitch be upstaged by Chris, and make no mistake. If you live within 500 miles of Louisiana, you have no excuse not to be dining at Green Goddess on Exchange Alley in the Quarter.

In other news: I mailed most of the invitations for my piano recital. No turning back now. ~GULP!~

In other news: I can feel every vertebra quite prominently poking through Harley's skin. She's a wrinkled old lady now, but she's still my only true spouse. Ben's going to have to wait until Death Do Us Part to really own me.

In other news: Herpy bidet to the Rt. Hon. docbrite! You don't look a DAY over Carrie Fisher. Enjoy your sweaty crank tonight. And … quick! Try not to think of that and giggle and ruin the mood when the time comes!

I suffer from performance anxiety.

No, not in bed, filthy thing, you.

Nor on stage, or film, or giving a reading. I can do all that.

I cannot perform music in public without turning into a twitching-limbed drooling Neanderthal.

My friend Eric wants me to play the processional music (his composition) at his wedding in October. He's my music buddy, and I can't say no, but remembering Sean and Chris's wedding, and how I clammed up and for two weeks after couldn't even look at a piano without a lump of nausea forming in my stomach, I'm a little trepidacious about doing it again.

So. In an effort to conquer, at least in part, my fear of performing music in public, I'll have to face my fear and just do it.

It is to that end that I am going to throw a formal recital at my house in mid-June. It will be an hour of hard-core classical that I have trouble getting through under the best of circumstances. The pressure of performing for people, even if only my friends whom I've invited, will, I hope, break me through some sort of barrier and perhaps I can just get ON with things and not act like a fucking fucktard at the keyboard.

As this will be a formal recital, I want to mail proper invitations. If you would like to attend, and you're pretty sure I might possibly not have your snail address, please email it to me at once at: todd at dejadu dot c-m, cheers.

Manderley came with a nine foot gardenia "tree" that blooms once — maybe twice a year.

When it does, "redolent" isn't quite the word for the courtyard. The proper phrase might be more along the lines of: "smashed in the face with a flower"

Of course, there is no fragrance more preferable to be smashed in the face with than that of a gardenia "tree" in full, sexy bloom.

Here's the "tree" a couple of weeks ago. Now, the flowers are dying. Throwing this out to you garden geeks: Can you deadhead a gardenia bush to get another cycle out of it? Or would that only hurt the plant? I know they don't like to be trimmed back like, say, a rosebush does.

Here are a couple more pix found on my camera. The first answers the age-old question of What Do I Do With My Wrinkled Old Pussy?

( Wrinkled Pussy Here... )

Last night was Wednesday Wii Night at 700 Club. A silly little night of bowling tournys sponsored by Smirnoff where the winner goes home with a bottle of vodka.

I wasn't familiar with the Nintendo Wii system, but on my first night attending I somehow beat everyone and went home with a bottle of white grape vodka which tastes very much like the "green" flavored pouch from the old Fun Dips I used to score off the ice cream truck as a child. (I want to find a packet of fun dip and rim a martini glass with the green powder and make a Fundiptini. Do they still make that stuff? I haven't seen it since the 70s. "Lik-a-maid" was the brand, n'est-ce pas?)

The second week I went to Wii Wednesdays, Ben joined me. He's not a gamer at all, but somehow he made off with the Russian booty. Regular non-flavored Smirnoff — not a good sipping vodka, but serviceable for bloody marys or other mixed drinks.

The third week we attended, Ben and I made it to the finals, and we both beat out the other girl we were playing against. We chose the orange vodka that night.

Somehow we also have acquired pomegranate vodka.

Last night we swaggered into the bar with the hubris of winning already on our lips: Matthew! What flavor of Smirnoff are we taking home tonight?

None, as it turned out. Despite priming ourselves with the requisite two beer buzz, invaluable to bowlers, pool players and those attending mediocre comedy performances, our game was decidedly in the "off" position. Neither of us made it to the finals.

This is a great blow to our Wii bowling prowess, and a major setback in our vague but fervent goal to attain all 12 or 18 or 127 flavors of Smirnoff vodka.

In a week or so there's a promo at the casino: play X amount and take home a Wii. I think we'll have to do that so we can spruce up our game in the privacy of our ownsome.

Meanwhile, Matthew is adamant about throwing my 40^th birthday party at his bar.

"It's a double-header," I explained. "Paul's birthday is July 27^th. I'm the 28^th. For years now he's passed me the virtual baton over the Atlantic via email or text. This year he's decided to fly to New Orleans to literally hand off the birthday baton at midnight. This party is going on for three days."

"Cool," said Matthew. "What do you want to do?"

Thinking of the most ridiculous thing, I suggested pouring water on the floor, cranking the AC down to 20°f and turn the place into an ice skating rink.

"Don't think the AC will go that far," he said, seriously considering my nonsense.

Working off the theme, I tossed out this equally absurd idea: what about an Imelda Marcos party? We all know she was infamous for hording designer shoes while her citizens starved in the street. But her Marie Antoinette'ism didn't stop there. My favorite story about Imelda was her Winter Tea Parties in the summer. She and her rich-bitch friends thought it such a pity that they didn't have the chance to wear their expensive furs in the summer in the Philippines, so Imelda had a walk-in freezer built for the express purpose of having a tea party that allowed these garments to be trotted out off-season.

"Will your AC do that?" I asked Matthew.

"Totally! We can get portable units as well and make the place colder. And we can…" Matthew was off and running with the idea.

I don't know if that's what we'll do, but it would be fun to have an occasion to wear my new floor-length exaggerated houndstooth overcoat, courtesy of Hong Kong Tailor, in late July in New Orleans.

Imelda Marcos is, after all, the mascot of the Girls' Cocktail Club, an organization peopled by Blonde Liz, Little Liz, Gwen, Kelly, and the rest of the old-skool bitches, with yours truly admitted as an honorary Girl. Gwen even made buttons with Imelda's face and GCC logo'd around her.

So, yah, winter in July. It's a thought.

Or we might just throw something at Manderley. I've still got some time to talk things over with Ben and Paul.

If we decide to have a house party, we're really going to need every flavor of Smirnoff, so I've got to bone up on my game. I would die of shame if a partygoer asked for a Cajun Squirrel and Cheddar-flavored vodka and soda and I didn't have the goods to deliver!

Yesterday, and part of the day before, was quite the travel day.

I went to bed Saturday night in Tahoe at 1:30 am.

At 3:30 am (which I'll now call Sunday morning as opposed to Saturday night) my alarm went off. I packed quickly, drowsily, in the dark so as not to wake Ben.

My limo was waiting for me to take me down the mountain. On less than two hours of sleep, I "napped" in the back, watching the blue backlit decanters of vodka and bourbon slosh around as the car slalomed down the dark Sierras into Reno. Who drinks bourbon waking up at this hour, I thought? Perhaps they thought this car was for Bukowski or Burroughs.

In Reno, dawn still not on the horizon, I got into a clusterfuck of families herding their spastic crumbsnatchers every which way. I fly American Airlines, and happily have a pretty decent status with them that allows me line passes, but the first leg of yesterday's journey was on Horizon Air, where they don't know me, and told me to wait in not one but two very long lines of peasants, pigs and chickens.

Despite being at the airport a record hour and a half early, I still barely made my flight due to the enormous queue of first-time fliers who've never dealt with the TSA and the absurd hoops one is made to jump through.

Quick flight on a tiny prop plane from RNO—>LAX, where I had three hours to get lost amongst that unfamiliar airport. I finally asked an airline crew where my terminal was. "It's, like, totally over there," she pointed, grinding it painfully into my head that I was, in fact, in Los Anguhleeze.

The rest of my trip was on American, so I enjoyed the preferential treatment I've come to expect. Short queues, first class seats, etc. But the day was so long, my sleep so deprived, and my routing so absurd that I started having flight panic attacks for the first time in many years.

I was convinced the LAX—>DFW plane was going to go down as we pulled away from the gate and had to bite my lip in order not to jump up and scream, "LET ME OFF THIS DEATHTRAP!" I still have a welt on the inside of my mouth from biting my lip.

Eventually, Patti's valium kicked in and I semi-slept for half an hour on that four hour flight.

Dallas was weirdly gorgeous yesterday afternoon. Cool and dry and clear. But I just wanted to be HOME! "HOME!" was the mantra I chanted under my breath. The day was too long. Sleep was elusive, even in comfy chair on the right drugs.

DFW—>MSY went okay. First class. My bag came right out. No waiting to get my car out of the carpark. Straight home, no traffic, to find easy parking. But everything about everything yesterday seemed exceptionally arduous, even if it weren't.

About an hour after I got home, I hear the front door opening. Rickilane went back to Vegas. I knew Ben was still several hours away, following my same routing, but leaving at a decent hour instead of 3:30 am down the mountain. "Shit, where's the gun," I thought for a minute.

"Hello?" said the intruder. It was Paul, arriving from London.

Lack of sleep, the long, trying day, and the residual effects of valium made this a surreal event. Paul left New Orleans for London a day before we went to Tahoe.

Now we arrive back in New Orleans at the same time.

"How was YOUR flight?" I asked.

"Oh yah. Fine. I left at 2:00 in the afternoon and changed in Chicago."

Doing some quick math, I realized that he had just proven my theory to be true. I often say that getting from MSY to Lake Tahoe takes as long as getting from MSY to Europe. 2pm in London = 6am in Tahoe.

It's the old word problem: If two planes leave Reno and Heathrow at the same time, one flying 2,000 miles, the other flying 6,000 miles, which gets to New Orleans first?

It's a tie.

Meanwhile, Ben's flights are fucked. His LAX—>DFW flight was canceled. They put him on United, where he has no status, and was crammed in with the howler monkeys and swine flu victims in coach. That was delayed a few hours. He didn't get home till 2am last night.

Brother Chris, meanwhile, texted me late last night, "We FINALLY made it home. Hope you beat us," having driven from Tahoe to So. Cal.

"I certainly beat you to L.A.," I texted back, remembering my early morning in that dreadful place. "Only just got to NOLA a couple hours ago."

The moral of this arguably pointless story is that Paul had the nicest day of travel, despite having three times farther a trip.

Next time, fuck Tahoe. I'll just go to London.

After being up essentially for 36 hours, I looked at my computer clock when I woke up. "2:30 pm!?" I was shocked. I never wake up that late. Oh wait, I further thought, I haven't changed the time zone back to Central, thinking that would make it noon.

No, dummy, that makes it 4:30pm. I slept until 4:30pm today?

Duzzn't matter. I'm home. Home, home, home at last.

I have a flight out of Reno at 6am in the morning. Which means I need to be there at 5am. Which means I need to leave Lake Tahoe at 3:30am. Which means I need to be up at 3:15 (in three hours) to quickly ablute and powder my perruque to meet the limo down the hill.

My routing is utterly retarded. RNO—>LAX. LAX—>DFW. DWF—>MSY.

A more amenable flight pattern would have cost another $700, so I'll suffer through the insult of having to spend 2 1/2 hours in Los Anguhleeze in the name of pecuniary frugality.

And I'll suffer it happily. Because tonight … THIS happened …

( You know you wanna know... )

I'm all alone in a very stretched limo with a glass of wine, driving through Carson City on the way up the mountain to Lake Tahoe, pondering some words of wisdom I read on the plane. And where did I stumble upon these comforting words? In nothing as holy as the bible, the Koran, nor the Kama Sutra. Neither will the thought be found in the works of Kahlil Gibran, Milan Kundera, nor Ann Coulter.

The new voice of philosophy and spirital direction is in the pages of the in-flight issue of American Way Magazine, in an interview with some obscure'ish Hollywood starlet. Ben Affleck's wife or mistress or something? I forget which horse owned the mouth, but the words were these:

Happiness is your own responsibility.

Truer words hath ne'er been uttered, and while it's a simple credo, it is equally elusive.

Why have I been angry, frustrated and scared for so long, I asked myself? Sure, Katrina did a number on me, as it did all my hometown brethren, but am I not master of my own mind? Happiness is your own responsibility. It's a choice to be happy, and I think we all forget that fact sometimes.

It's also a choice to allow ill tidings, heartless agencies, morally bankrupt policies, and bad, bad people to affect our overall demeanor.

Angry with your parents over childhood wrongs either real or perceived? Work through it. Happiness is your responsibility.

Furious with a government that lied about the state of your federal levee system, then ignored the greatest man-made disaster anyone in our lifetime is likely to see, then quickly swept as much of the mess under the largest carpet they could find? Sure you are. It's healthy to be pissed off. But happiness is your responsibility too.

Upset that nothing ever goes right at DFW? That your small window of connection grew slimmer and slimmer as you sat in an idle plane, inches from the terminal, while a lazy worker took twenty minutes to move the bridge to the door of the plane? OJ'ing through the airport from Terminal D to Terminal A (three miles), to find the gate was changed to the C Terminal (three miles), and once at the C Terminal, told it was back to A (three miles). Darting onto the plane as they shut the doors, then sitting on the tarmac for 90 minutes. Travel got you down? Wish you were dead? The thought must cross your mind. But there is a bright side; the flight wasn't canceled, and you're about to have a lovely weekend with your husband and your brother in one of the most beautiful places in the country. Happiness is your responsibility.

I'm tired of being angry all the time. I want to change. This does not mean becoming a complacent, nodding yesman, allowing all manner of injustices to come and go through my life with nary a complaint. But it does mean limiting the power these injustices, accidents, thieves and buffoons have upon my life and psyche. Happiness is MY responsibility. No one can make me feel anything I choose not to feel. If I believe that, then I must believe that I've chosen to be frustrated and furious for most of my life.

It's going to take a lot of unlearning and relearning, but the sage counsel found in the pages of an airline tabloid doesn't lie.

It's time to move on. To let things go. To allow myself the option of being happy.

Honestly, I have so much to be grateful for. Why don't I pore over these items with the same morbid vim I obsess over the bad shit?

Happiness is your … well, you know how it goes.

Soz once again for the long delay in an update.

I know it's time to scribble something here when I start receiving emails, phone calls and texts from concerned friends: Are you okay???

Why yes, and thanks for asking!

It's been quite a couple of weeks.

Paul was in town from jolly ole Blighty, and while I wasn't up to my usual speed with him, and felt decidedly a dullard for the SSRI's and lack of nicotine in my system, it's still such a joy to behold his face in the mornings. (Er, 2pm for us.)

The Asylum St. Spankers blew through town last week as well, and somehow managed to pull off an incredible show at One Eyed Jack's despite Christina Marrs not joining them on this tour. (Nursing new baby.)

They had fortunately scheduled an extra day in New Orleans, so I took Wammo out for the day. We zig zagged all over the Quarter, having lunch, having a drink, buying a trinket, having a drink, exploring the cathedral, having a drink. And then we went drinking. He (along with Paul) is one of those people who have a very positive effect on me. He (along with Paul) ooze right-brained fortitude, and I cannot help but catch the contagion.

Friday and Saturday were spent in the best manner I could conceive — dining at chefcdb's new restaurant, The Green Goddess on Exchange Alley in the Quarter. He's not officially open — still waiting on the poky state to okay his health permit — but he did want to start cooking and get the buzz going about his new venture, so he pulled a couple invite-only dinners.

I invited myself to both, and dragged along people who could serve Chris well with their prominent voices. French Quarter merchants, rockstars, and I'm hoping Paul will write something up in England.

It's been nearly a year since Chris de Barr left Delachaise. It's been nearly a year since I've had his food. He was and remains the most talented, original, and savvy chef New Orleans has to offer, and that is a HUGE statement coming from a city with some of the finest restaurants in the world.

Eating his unique, understated, fascinating and delicious meals again is like settling into your comfiest chair — the one you weren't allowed to sit in for nearly a year. "Ohhh, Chris is back," I said through mouthfuls of food on Friday and Saturday night.

On mother's day I threw my back out, and spent the day doped up and napping. Almost forgot to call mom, but managed a zombie-like conversation Sunday evening. Later that night, I went to the Fleur de Tease burlesque show at OEJ's with Ryan, Marcy, Sean, Chris, Rickilane, Jeremy — oh, just everybody.

Brian Peterson and I were running around the front bar screaming, "Boobies! Boobies! Boobies!" à la Neely O'Hara. My true gayness came out when with a start I realized I wasn't watching the show to admire the female form; I was watching the show with the intent of stealing pattern ideas. When Tinkerbell came out to do her striptease, for example, everyone was hooting and hollering when the tits came out, while I was thinking, "Those edges aren't finished on her tattered and jaggy skirt. I know how hard it is to work with those springy knits. Always curling at the edges. I wonder if she interfaced them."

Don, a superior seamstress to my meager abilities, was sitting at the next table. I leaned over and asked him for sewing tips on this or that costume. "Dude. I'm straight. I'm looking at tits. Shut up."

"Yah, but how many YARDS of black velvet would it take to cover that hooped Red Queen dress? I mean, that shit's on the fuckin' BIAS, man!"

I took my friends back home to Manderley after the show where we sat on the deck and finished off a bottle of Scotch after talking Paul into staying up with us with this flawless logic: "Sleep? You don't need sleep. That's what trans-Atlantic flights are for. Sleep on the plane. Drink with us."

He hates having his arm twisted.

Monday was pretty much a write-off. Back still hurting. Painkillers taken for their intended purpose. (How sad when that is the case.)

Today's a bit better. Did some banking. Biked to the CBD to pick up my final item from Honk Kong Tailor — a long overcoat made of exaggerated black and white houndstooth with silver thread running throughout and green silk satin lining. Just in time for summer!

Annie, my old regular from The Saint, came by and did yard work for me since my back is out. She's my new favorite housekeeper, annnnd she does yard work! She's a treasure, and I'm so glad I found her. (If you need a housekeeper, I recommend her entirely. Contact me for her digits.)

Ben comes home tonight from Vegas, then we're off on Thursday to Tahoe for some work and to meet with my brother whose birthday is, conveniently, Thursday.

So that's that. I feel quite useless for not making this entry more entertaining to read. This logy, lacking-nicotine, drugged dizziness takes its toll on my writing and conversing skills.

If you want a not-in-any-way challenging conversation and can't find someone stupid in your neighborhood, call me up and I'll go have drinks with you and astound you with pithy insights like, "I like beer. It tastes good to me."

That's all I got.

Michele just rang me.

"I'm sure you heard about last night," she said. That's never a good way to start a conversation.

"No."

"Oh. Well. You're in the Quarter. I thought you should hear about it from me before the diluted rumors get to you. I'm okay, by the way…"

NEVER a good way to start a conversation.

So Michele's working the back bar at Monaghan's last night. Around 5am, and in the span of less than a minute, a man came in, shot his estranged wife at the front bar, wounding the man sitting next to her as well. She fell to the floor. He continued pumping her with rounds as he backed out of the door.

He remains unapprehended as of this afternoon.

The woman died in the ambulance. Her barstool neighbor is in critical condition with two shots in his pelvis and abdomen. No one else was hurt.

This woman — this girl, for she was just 23 — has children with this man. Said offspring will always have to call him 'dad'.

As in, "Thanks, dad. Nice going."

A week or so ago, again in Monaghan's, the same man came in, picked up his estranged wife and threw her against a wall. He was arrested for that, and got out on bail late last night. Apparently he went straight to find a gun and shoot her.

I mourn for humanity.

Michele is still in shock, and shock is a rational, functional place to be. "I expect in a couple of months I'm going to start freaking out about this," she said levelly.

She described the after-scene in the bar in this way: after the crying had stopped, there was the nervous, inappropriate laughter — the kind that is necessary to get through witnessing something like that.

"Sorta like us in Pennsylvania after Katrina?" I asked.

"Pretty fucking much, yes."

I'm going to visit her at work tonight and I hope she can keep it together.

Eight minutes until I can have my first smokietreat of the day.

Eight looooooong minutes.

Fuck. Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck-meee. How do I fill these seven and a half eternal minutes?

I'm talking to you, blogosphere. I'm wasting time, and bandwidth, and hard drive space, and most importantly reader time, with empty, meaningless words that will arrive at no point whatsoever, but at least now it's only seven minutes.

Seven minutes until I can have a cigarette. That's not so long is it?

Yes. It is. It's a very long time. I'm typing faster as if that will speed up the clock. It's not. We're still at seven minutes. I'm a fast typist. Damn my mad skillz.

Fuck this. I'm going to go play a six and a half minute song on the piano. Of course, I'll probably play it too fast and still have a minute and a half to fill.

Why is this so difficult today? Yesterday was much easier.

Six minutes…

---

Eleven minutes later…

Ah.

My scalp is heavy.

The whole earth is sucking me down as if I were on Jupiter. Limbs of heavy lead, moving like barely-molten metal. Walking as if through quicksand. The words on the page of the bad book I'm reading swim and morph into Sanskrit. I cannot read. I do not care to read.

This may not sound pleasant, but if you've ever been "friends" with nicotine, you'll know it's the most delicious feeling in the world. Like getting off that long trans-Atlantic flight to Rome and having a cigarette in Da Vinci airport. Bathing in the bright light that teased from the end of a tunnel moments and hours ago.

If my phone were to ring right now, I wouldn't answer it. I'm too logy and blissful. I cannot communicate.

Dammit, I don't want to stop smoking. It's too exquisite a vice.