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

Left to right: Cousin Bergen, Uncle John, Aunt Kim, mom, Ben's dad, Ben's bro Tim, Ben's mom, yours truly, yours truly's better half.

This, mes amis, is going to work. Yes, by god, I can see a cigarette-less life in the near future, without all the itching, maddening discomfort of nic withdrawal.

Yesterday was my first Vape Day. I wasn't being strict with myself. I just wanted to see how my body reacted to the strange new mode of drug-injection.

I'm a pack-a-day boy, and that first one in the morning is the most important.

Yesterday, after some tokes off the vaporizer, I realized with some wonder that I didn't truly crave my first analog cigarette until two hours after I'd been awake. This is unheard of. The mornings are when my body screams the loudest for a cigarette.

I went through the day taking a few hits off my e-cig whenever the urge for smoking cropped up. And, on some occasions, I allowed myself an old-skool Camel.

If I normally smoke 20 a day, I think it's damn good progress to find, on my first vaping day, that I was down to six real cigarettes.

Perhaps less today. I've been up 1 1/2 hours and haven't had a cig yet. Don't really crave one yet either.

This is nothing short of miraculous.

(P.S. scottynola, you're welcome to come by and try-before-you-buy. I wouldn't have bought the kit if geekwitch hadn't shown me the product first.)

Considering how NOT Martha Stewart I am, this week has come off remarkably smoothly. Seven family members from three time zones all flew in for TG, most of whom we housed in Manderley until every corner and nook was occupied.

TG itself was a day of near perfection: Dressed to the nines in our Ascot-best, we spent a day at the races betting on Three Legged Nancy and Palsied Polly to place. (I lost.)

Of course the real reason is to See and Be Seen. Hats are a dying art form these days, so it's exciting to see what people can come up with on a hat-ful day. Of course nofunangie won the fashion award, having sewn her own form-fitting burgundy velvet Liza Doolittle dress with a complementing golden birdcage hat. (Pix forthcoming, ducks.)

Dinner at Commander's Palace is the Thing To Be Doing. I regret my poor reservation planning that bade Paul and Rhiannon to miss dinner due to being one person over the limit, but then Michele stepped in and took the one free seat when two dropped out. (Uh, it's a math thing.)

Duck and obligaturkey and baked cobbler with caramel ice cream and, best of all, no dishes to clean! And a hug from Ti Brennan, who seems to know my name by this point in our frequent dining relationship.

Friday night I took the whole gang out to Dorian's show, Livin' Janis. Now, I've never been a huge fan of Janis Joplin, and some of my family were complaining of the same issue, thinking a 90 minute biographical redux of her life would be, like, Dullsville man.

But Dorian's show, in the writing, performance, and most importantly her rockin' set of pipes, sways even Janis-haters to enchantment.

Tried to have post-show drinks with Dorian and Patrick, but Soul Bowl clusterfuckage in the Quarter was a deterrent to them. Can't say I blame them.

Saturday we took the remaining out-of-towners to Central Grocery for Muffaletta's, which we ate on the levee overlooking the Mighty Miss on what was arguably the most beautiful day of the year.

I drove Ben, mom and cousin Bergen to the ærëoport in hellish Soul Bowl traffic. Sad farewells to mom, but I knew I'd see her in a month for xmas.

Teary farewell (literally—I was crying when I drove out of MSY) to Ben who's gone for eight days this time. Sigh. Eight days. He's gone a lot, and that sucks, but at least it's not usually for more than 3 or four days.

Eight. Ugh.

Apparently he feels the same way about us being parted for so long, because I see in my email this morning that he has scored me an award ticket to Vegas tomorrow. Which, I do believe, I will gladly accept.

Aunt Kim and Uncle John left early this morning, leaving me in a family-less, husband-elect-less house. Today is, as I told Paul last night, "a day to cheese balls off^* and watch Amy Sedaris movies." He seemed to think that was a good idea, so let's get to it!

^* This is code we coined in Thailand that involves Tramal-Retard pills and a great deal of feeling dizzy and fabulous for many hours. The phrase is derived from the South Park cat pee episode. "Why is it called 'cheesing'? Because it's FON to DUE!"

Thanks to the introduction made by geekwitch's recent NOLA visit, I am now learning the fine are of vaping.

Oh sure, spellcheck, underline that word, "vape." Soon, you will be acquainted, as am I.

What the fuck is he on about, you're probably not asking yourself because you began skimming through/past this seemingly nonsensical entry at the first sign of a strange word.

For you, intrepid fourth-¶ reader, is an explanation: I am sadly hooked on cigarettes. A few attempts to quit over the years have proved fruitless/violent/exasperating beyond endurance. My body needs nicotine, and things get very ugly if my body doesn't get what it requires.

I've tried lozenges and gum, but they don't satisfy all my smoking needs, and violence and alien behavior arrive forthwith.

Along comes vaping. aka "E-Cigarette." aka "Digital Smoking." And a spark of hope for me for a spark-less future.

How it works is like this: a cigarette-shaped metal cylinder which is the battery screws onto another cylinder filled with liquid nicotine and a flavoring of your choice. When inhaled, the battery atomizes water vapor to mix with the nicotine and flavoring, providing your lungs and body with a synthetic "smoke" that is harmless, but gives you the fix you need.

Exhaling results in a little vaporous puff of odorless moisture, not unlike exhaling outside on a cold day. It immediately evaporates into oblivion.

Suddenly a feasible end to smoking is in sight, and if the last 24 hours since my e-cigarettes have arrived are any indication, it's not going to be nearly as painful a process as my previous attempts have been.

Plus, I can now smoke in restaurants, theatres, airports and airplanes, and all the other places where nic withdrawal causes angst, tension, and seventeen flavors of toe-tapping hell. There is no combustion whatsoever, and no second hand anything, so no reason for uptight people to get their collective panties in a twist.

Thanks Portia. Thanks, thanks, thanks.

"Drink to forget, but don't forget to pay."

Poster for the film "Rec 2," seen in a toilet in Madrid.

"Rec" was the original Spanish film inspiring "Quarantine," which I think is my favorite zombie flick yet.

So, yah, I'm peeing myself a little bit that there's a sequel.

I first met docbrite because, after the storm, the goodly Doc was the only one making any fucking sense. Amidst a turbulent sea of misinformed journalism (at best) or outright, agenda-executing, lying media (at worst, and more common), it was fresh, clean, pure oxygen to read Poppy's words about my adoptive hometown. Finally, someone's getting it right, I thought.

"I would like to nominate you as the Collective Voice of New Orleanians," I said by way of introduction.

And, this just in, is brill:

"As far as I'm concerned, I don't live in North America. I live in a small northern outpost of the Caribbean that is, at most, a neglected protectorate of the United States."

Perfecto, cariño!

Museo del Prado, Madrid, España.

Hey friends and stalkers in San Fran, my friend Rachel Parker is performing her one-woman show, "On the Rocks," in November.

I wish like anything that I could be there to see it. She's been working on this show for several years, and if I know Rachel, which I do, it's going to be fucking brilliant.

Here's the info: http://www.brava.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=106&Itemid=93

I lived with Rachel in SF many æons ago when we were in our early 20s, shacking up in a cold-water flat in what was later to be known as "SoMa," with four other people and no walls. We bathed in a giant plastic tugboat, "Tuggy," built as a child's sandbox but reappropriated for our needs. Water was heated in a pan on an electric hotplate and poured in to the bather's water by one of the flatmates. You couldn't heat water AND use a hairdryer, or coffee machine, or other appliance, or an audible "BZZT!" would erupt and the lights would go out.

In fact my first ever online handle, on the local BBS "SFNet" (pre-internet, y'all), was "BZZT!" I thought I was the hottest caballero in the compaña because I had actually installed a 2400 baud modem into my 386 PC and could Net from home.

We fancied ourselves filmmakers in those days, Patrick, Rachel and Raelle (who, I believe, is producing Rachel's SF show) and I. Many adventures were had. Many mistakes were made. Much learning was culled. And that is the magic of being 23 in San Francisco.

Ah, but I wax nostalgic, and digress capriciously.

Seriously, if you're in the area, PLEASE go to Rachel's show and let me know how it was. She has, in my esteem, always been the pinnacle of wit, hilarity and poignancy.

Here we are, circa 1992 in said cold-water flat, drinking Courvoisier with the dignity and class of the Young.

HiLo would NOT be safe Madrid!

In Parque del Retiro, Madrid.

Back to Photos o' the Day! Woo hoo! Internet, how I missed ye.

This is in an upscale lighting store in Chueca, Madrid. One can only hope the trigger is the on/off switch.

Fleur de Tease girls adorned Sean Yseult's and Louis St. Lewis's collaborative art opening on Saturday.

This is, hands down, the darkest comedy sketch I've ever seen.

And I love it, even though I'm going to hell for laughing.

First Saturday art show throughout the Warehouse Dist.

Paul helps Rhiannon with her Noisician drum kit.

Ben left this morning for the weekend. Gone till Monday. To Shreve-fucking-port, pobrecito. We're hardly attached at the hip or anything like that when he's home, but when he's gone I feel it acutely. And he feels my absence, so he reports, when he's away. It was an almost tearful farewell this morning when he left.

I had no plans for this evening except that whatever plans I made I wanted no or very-little alcohol to be involved.

Kristin tweeted about a folksy show Uptown — a performance by the Oakland-based Moore Brothers. After listening to some music on their website, I deemed them harmonically competent and opted in for the show. I was, after all, craving music with actual real live harmony.

Ben took the car to Shreve-fucking-port, so I took the streetcar for the first time in I-can't-remember-how-long. Been years, I'm sure. I used to like the streetcar. The rickety rattles, harsh lurches, clinks, clanks and clunks.

I forgot that getting a streetcar on a Friday at 9 at Canal St. is a thing of not to be of the doing. Boisterous woo-hoo'age a-go-go. No seats. Girls Gone Mild frotting me with no subtlety to speak of. The car was late, and the moment everyone piled onto it, an empty one showed up right behind us. Too late to switch.

At Louisiana Ave., ours stopped for 20 minutes, then we were all told to board the one behind us. Another 15 minutes later we were on our merry way again.

I got to the venue and the boys tuning their guitars were not the Moore Brothers. "Oh well," I thought, "I'm here. A cup of coffee and some singing might be nice."

They didn't entirely suck, but harmonics was beyond their musical realm. Tonic, dom, sub-dom, repeat, seemed to be as far as they got in music school.

The Moore Brothers ended up play Baton Rouge instead, it seems. I could have gotten there and back quicker (if I had a car, that is).

I left after playing my anagram game on my iPhone on a sofa, walked back to St. Charles and waited about an hour for another streetcar.

A nice, filthy-mouthed dishwasher from one of the Uptown Bluehair restaurants waited with me for the last 15 minutes, leavening my mood a bit with his vituperative jeremiads re: N.O. public transit. Sing it, sistah!

An incredibly stinky ride home. "It's called Speed Stick. It's not es'pensive…"

A walk down Bourbon wherein I stepped in a)vomit, b)piss, c)what I hope was dog excrement. I "washed" my boots off in pissy, vomity, daiquiri-hued gutter water and went to see Micha at Monaghan's for a soul-booster.

Home now, still wanting music with actual well-thought-out harmony, so I'm listening to Beethoven.

Maybe a glass of red wine, some backlogged Mad Men, and an early bed.

Reading of docbrite's Amsterdam travels on LJ and her Twatterings is making me jealous for a little Eurojaunt.

I keep having to remind myself that on Tuesday we leave for Madrid. Why Madrid? Because the tix were too cheap to pass up. And I need one more semi-long flight this year to get platinum status on AA, which is very valuable in that you earn double miles, better chances at upgrades, and other perks. It was from being platinum last year that scored us free first class tix to Thailand and, in March of '10, free first class to Australia.

Plus, hello, Madrid? MUCH? Ben found us a cheap hotel in the gayborhood. All the yummy Spanish eye candy you can eat. And there is no candy sweeter than the Spanish.

That should be brightening up my mood, but I remain sullen and blue. I just want my husband-elect back. Now.

Au Petit Théâtre, Vieux Carré, where we saw "25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" last night, then dragged a bunch of theatre people home to get wasted chez Manderley.

Just 'cos Halloween is over is no reason that Halloween should be over.

This Thursday evening, Paul and I are going out to revive the Art of Costume and Role Playing.

We're going to do something neither of us has ever done: dress and act like douchebag frat boys and tour the crap daiquiri bars, jazz venues and karaoke spots of Bourbon Street.

Anyone want to join us?

Or, barring that, can I borrow your pastel-striped polo shirt, khaki cargo shorts, or out-of-town football jersey? Wigger caps, I can do already.

Of all the sparkly, glamorous, gory, themed oddities in my closet, I actually don't have this particular costume available.

Going to rummage through the attic for bags of Mardi Gras beads, plastic hand grenade vessels on lanyards and other touristy shite.

We need some Girls Gone Mild. Not-blonde-Liz? Gwen? C'mon bitches! Come out and woo-hoop it up!

WØØT!

I couldn't sleep last night, despite being run down, run over, and run through.

I deftly chose to watch Polanski's "Repulsion" at 3am — a film I had never seen nor knew anything about.

Oh my god.

Was that ever the wrong choice.

I can't remember the last time a film got under my skin — stuck in my head like a splinter.

As I expected, dreams last night were many, and very disturbing.

Something about eschewing all of life's responsibilities and going on a destinationless roadtrip. The roadtrip turned out to be me on the lam, finding people to take me in in this or that strange city, doing something accidentally horrible to them, then beating a frenetic retreat before they could track me down.

In my dream, Texas's slogan was not "Don't Mess With Texas," but this rather more ominous warning: "Kill A Texan; Die In Texas."

I awoke several times last night absolutely sure someone uninvited was creeping through the house. Ben's wee-hour wake-up screaming and waking-sleep urgent question, "What's going on in this house RIGHT NOW?!" didn't exactly help matters. Thought of sleeping with the gun under my pillow.

So, yah, thanks Roman Polanski and Catherine Deneuve. Thanks so much.

No place — no place in the world I've ever seen — does Halloween quite as well as New Orleans.

Back in my jetset days when Ben and I were on the road more than off it, we would always schedule to be home on Halloween weekend, no matter the cost.

Having said that, no place but New Orleans on Halloween will leave one with the distinct feeling of having been run over by a convoy of eighteen-wheelers. She is a cruel mistress, Miss 31^st Oct. in New Orleans. A bitch goddess: she giveth, and she taketh away.

A coherent narrative of last night would have been impossible had I not saddled myself with my good camera. I knew the low-light atmosphere of wherever-the-night-would-lead-me would confound my poor little iPhone's lens, so while it was cumbersome to tote a big ole camera bag, I'm glad I did.

( Stories and pix here. )

Back by popular demand (well, I demanded it), Rhiannon's silent movie star costume.

Really, I'm just trying to read my happy little WWII book on my side deck — that which borders Krayzee Kornerz, but the phrase, "I'm sorry, I couldn't help but eavesdropping…" popped to mind.

Truthfully, I did my best to tune out the two nutjob voices, but the erratic cadence, the differing yet similar rasps, the burned-out accents — it just pierced through the pages of my book and into my defenseless ears.

"Why would you do that? Why would you listen to your Other Self?" asked excitable, raspy Krayzee Kownselor.

"She tells me things I need to know."

"Your Real Self and this Other Self need to come to terms with each other." A pause as a lighter flicks, and I see a yellow guttering flame briefly illuminate the dark courtyard of Krayzee Kornerz. Then, a long, vicious hit off something. I'm upwind, so couldn't say if it were pot or crack or what.

Krayzee Payshunt: "I dunno," she slurs through a tongue that sounds deadened with sodium Pentothal, "the longer I'm with him, the harder it is to leave."

"But that's your Other Self talking. Think of all the horrible things he does. And reflect on your own horrible choices."

Another pause. Another yellow flickering. Another desperate toke.

"Shit, I gotta pee," says Krayzee Kownselor.

"It's through the hall and on the right," mushes Krayzee Payshunt.

"I know where it is," pipes a frenetic Kownselor.

"Just down the hall, then on the right," repeats Payshunt. "It's dark. The electricity's off." A pause. "Again."

In Kowneslor's absence, she talks to her dog. "Hey. Dog. Come here. Dog. Don't. Stop it. Dog."

Kownselor's voice grows as she wends her way back through the dark maze to the dark courtyard. "Just tell me this. Do the pros outweight the cons?"

"I dunno. Sloshy-sloshy-slush-slush. Mumble-mush-mush…"

"You've gotta make some better choices in your life, no matter what your Other Self has to say on the matter!" Spark. Gutter. Toke.

At least on that last point, I can agree.