LOVER

Ready?

"Evacuations in New Orleans should be easier this year. There are fewer residents in the city and more of those who are here have transportation. In another effort to encourage residents to leave, officials will allow evacuees to take pets on buses. Barring pets on the buses was a major factor in causing people to stay in the city after Katrina."

Reading that - someone just punched me in the gut. And I started to cry, without reserve, a quick splash of hot dumb tears. And I got sick to my stomach, automatically, against my will.

Think of it. Think of the iron-clad bond between a human being and their animals. Think of choosing to suffer, die even, rather than leave your animal to suffer and die. Think of being forced to leave your animal behind when you have stayed so long, hanging on to eachother. Think of the hot sick pain in the hearts of all of the people who were forced to leave their animals behind. Now think of the animals left behind, fighting not to drown, not to starve, die.

Oh there's a vast expanse of grief that is left in the wake of what happened because of that. And disgust and outrage because it did not have to be that way. Let's not forget that PETA had a well-documented plan of safe and humane pet evacuation in place with the city that the city's horrible "leadership" completely abandoned when the crisis hit.

Why does all sensitivity leave some people when crisis strikes? Why does all heart leak out of our leadership when it comes time to act with decisive compassion? I despise those men for what they did to my city and her people and her creatures. This is why I am utterly appalled that Ray Nagin remains mayor (read "The Great Deluge" and educate yourself about the horrendous irresponsible behaviour of that man - the only reason he's been re-elected is the same reason Bush got re-elected: fear.) And I applaud my city, her people and her creatures, the sunflowers that are popping up all over, the magnolias blooming from twisted branches, the utter refusal to let go of what is meaningful in life.

So Apparently/Do This Now

It happens like this: I spent all night and all morning on the phone and online and now I've got a plan: I'm going to receive disaster crisis training via the American Red Cross (eee-gads, I've slipped behind enemy lines) here in Austin during the next few weeks. And I have registered for First Aid/CPR training with local EMS. Then I qualify for International Red Cross "Disaster Action Team" orientation, in NYC most likely. Then I can go wherever I can go. It's a process, go figure. But I've got the information and the support I need to be able to do what I want to do.

This also means I'll be better equipped to pitch in and work in New Orleans, beyond the public art projects, when I'm there for my residency in the fall. And from then on: when the shit hits the fan, and it's going to hit it over and over again for the rest of our lives, I'll not go crazy from wanting to help, physically & literally. I know that donations are a good way to be involved when you can't up and get on a plane to Jakarta. But I CAN up and get on a plane to Jakarta, because I can, not cuz I'm so rich or anything but I know I can make that happen, I'm unencumbered, I'm free to do what I want. It's all a matter of preparedness, connections, and intention. Swell, I can do that.

And let's face it: a peaceful climate where nothing bad ever happens, or even where only simple nostalgic "bad things", like bank robberies or car crashes, happen, does not exist. We can surround ourselves with all the comforts we can imagine, pretty people and rowdy times, bbq's, shiny lights. And all that stuff is great, I need it, I need to get drunk on champagne at twilight, sure. I am one of those dreamy romantic girls who likes to make things pretty, who likes to hug and kiss and ride ferris wheels at the State Fair for real. But I live in this world now - a world of catclysmic environmental shifts, religious fanaticism (across the globe), and gigantic violences. I live in this world and I need to meet it head on.

I'm not going to waste any more time trying to reconcile my idealized dreams of how life should be with how it is. I'm not abandoning my romantic nature: I'm not advocating nihilism - I'm chasing acceptance. It's when I try to conjure up a vision of a "safe" path that's clean and quiet I toss and turn, I'm paralyzed, I can't decide which direction to move in. My security has always only come from knowing who I am at the core - nothing material, nothing external. I don't have delusions of grandeur like I can "save the world" or anything obscene like that. But I need to do what I can.

And I do know who I am, how I want to live my life, how I want to figure into all of this stuff of our modern world, and where and when. I need to be fluid, I need to be able to go where I'm feeling needed right then. I'm aware this can all sound a bit ... windy, but I've never cared about that. This is the healing process, it's just my life, what's the big deal? The process of healing? It's little moments of clarity, waking, that stack up underneath you the way lucite steps light up underneath Fred Astaire, until you're out of the hole and up where there's natural light and you can just plain see.

One way or another, I'm outta here

Bands, boys, booze, wit, tits, cigs, all that - it's pretty much white sugar. Me I'm pooling all my resources to go to Indonesia and volunteer. If you see him, tell The Obliterati I love him. I know he'll understand and kiss me long and hard when I get back.

W.O.W.

How did this guy wind up my dream date? And that was some date I had no idea I was going on. Over at Tina's, her curly hair is straight, there's a parade of beautiful animals and people all night, we've dodged the trouble, they've gone to the store and come back, and there stands one Mr. Cohen, looking at me and only me. Have I been set up? Good thing I'd had the instinct to just get a pedicure ...

Apes Liars Liars

"I made the hurricane," James wrote and it shocked me but when I calmed down I realized what he meant and it's cool. We all talk, copiously, gesticulating, about our lives since, about how we've all fucked something up and how people have become heroes again. So I walked through the house, followed by the beautiful hipster couple, the guy going on and on about some stain I got on his shirt. The house, it's unbelievably long, with bedroom after bedroom, like a ship, and mine room's in the very back. Mimi's put hydrangea in vases and set up a stereo made out of Legos for me. This is where you can find me.

So the handsome magician does his routine, in a white tux no less, and it's fantastic. Everyone wildly applauds and then he thanks me for "making all this possible!" He embraces me and I get swallowed up in his gigantic arms. I can feel his intention, let's say, and it unnerves me. The thing is, I don't know if I want to date the magician - I'm pretty sure I just wanted to be entertained.

Here in Austin, my neighbor keeps moving the trinkets and plants I've decorated our walkway with right into the path of traffic. I move it all back. She moves it back. I move it back. She moves it back. I'm getting my bags searched at airport security, candy spills out of my camera, the female security guard is not amused. A group of them pets my ankles, going on and on about how pretty they are. I finally decide, hey: I do not have to share with someone who doesn't appreciate it. The baby doll head in the bowl, the broken clock, the succulents - they're coming back to my stoop. I am liberated, I just take it all back.

B For Basketball

Why can't they just take initiative and buy the frickin jam when it runs out?  It's all she wanted and now she's going to be dead by tomorrow.  My mother, she's putting herself to sleep.  "This is no way to live," and I wonder what she means, everything's fine, except for that she wants to die.  Now Jenny and I are doing lots of things together, including swimming up the hill and investigating the house that I grew up in.  And my mother dies. 

How can she keep dying over and over?  Her hair is absolutely beautiful too, not just blonde but auburn, and shiny, why wouldn't you want to live, with hair like that?  I have cut some of it from her head, before the coroner comes, and wrapped it in tissue, like Arun's parents did, and I wonder if they still like Alaska. 

Later, when I'm writing down the grocery list, being very clear about the blackberry jam, I open a drawer I haven't opened in a long while and find the hair.  It's as if it happened a long time ago and I've come across something I'd forgotten I have.  Which really can't happen anymore as I lost everything like that in the flood.  So the feeling of finding something I'd forgotten I have, a piece of my past, it's very intense in and of itself.  Not to mention the hair.  And I think about how beautiful she was and how she didn't have to die like that if only she'd not just given up. 

All of this has made me very nostalgic for those days in junior high school when my mother was alive and not entirely bonkers yet.  I'd walk around the school when classes were in, just looking for photographs, and "innocently" wander into the gym to photograph the boys playing basketball.  It was work, right, for the school newspaper, and a chance for me, shy but fearless, to look at boys.  And I knew right then that my camera could take me anyhwere. 

I lost my 35mm in the flood too.  I miss that machine, it was so specific, Nikon, wide angle lens, slightly bent.  Couldn't take a bad picture with that camera, 3200 speed film, my way with the wide open aperture, its way with my nocturnal moods.  I could be quiet and it'd do all the seeing for me.  I would never not be surprised, getting that film.  That camera saw things I never could. 

I feel so bad I left it in that house - I have to confess: I left it behind.  And I'm having one of those days when I am furious with myself for having taken what I took, left what I left, what was I thinking?!!  There wasn't much more I could do, really, tiny tiny car, all the animals, you've got 2 hours, you don't think your house is going to fill with water, you're helping your old neighbors batten down the hatches, packing up your boss' house and negs for hours and hours, the tension is fierce, it's hot, the stray cats you love who love you won't let you hold them to get them in a carrier, you take what you can and you go.  I did the best I could.  But somehow I still feel I did not do enough.  And I can't go back and repack that car knowing what I know now.  You might think that knowing that makes it easier but some days, no, it does not.

 

Leave Me Alone I'm Listening to The Obliterati

I mean I'm working.

Oh The Lesson The Lesson The Lesson!

O yeaaaaaaaaa, bird in hand.  Pain/gain.  O what about better to burn out than fade away?  Every crisis offers opportunity.  Mmm, I know: early bird gets worm? 

One of my Meals on Wheels "clients" was asking me the other day how I am.  Her face kept openly reacting to my little story, which had to be told in response to her questions.  She was so empathetic and kind.  And I felt like just getting out of it, you know: to divert attention away from what could sound like a bad story that's killing me when it's not that bad, cuz I don't think it's that bad and it's surely not killing me.  And I pulled out that old chestnut, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  And she picked at her pretty emerald green polyester suit pants and said, "Hm.  Maybe not."

Truth be told: I travel between two poles (it's an intriguing road):  it's not a bad story, I'm super strong and cheerful, watch me go/it's an awful story, I've been whalloped, please love me if I need to fall down.  My work right now is in sewing these two poles together.  With something stronger than handmade paper and cotton thread, or ice, or salt.  So when the water comes it'll hold.  I've mangaged to hold.  Maybe what doesn't kill you just doesn't kill you.  Maybe strength exists way beyond that.

God why was I biking that hill with Brett Ratner?  Watching open-mouthed when the fake moon passed over.  Trying to find a way off that steep hill.  Answering the phone, the inevitable call.  The furniture's all out in the rain.  I'm going to carry that table home.  I give my dolls away.  One of them is Spiderman. 

Aluminum, sugar, paper

The apartment's a bit messy with my sugar levee testings. I did not say tasting. Aluminum rolled into curves isn't as easy as it looks but not as hard either. I want to sew the breeches with hand-made paper. Breaches? Sew? I'm working hard through a migraine. The kitten is going to live. I'm going to get needled. Tomorrow Ryan cuts my hair. It will magically stop falling out. Why am I not bald yet? A big-eyed, eager, unpredictable baldy.

This can't be happening.

My god. He broke his right rear leg?!?!? I just. That poor horse. My heart is just breaking for that magnificent horse. I hate this. That poor horse. FUCK. I mean seriously: fuck.

When he popped out of that gate early I was just, "Oh no. That's bad." That's bad but he's a super-horse, he really is, larger than life. I know horses, I know this horse, and everyone everyone I'm sure was praying to see the impossible, to see him win even after that mishap, and I said, "He's being sabotaged." It happens, I came up on tracks, that shit happens all the fucking time, it's sordid, it's not all ribbons and roosters and foals romping in shiny green pastures, and I felt very very worried all of a sudden. And then. They got him back in the gate and pop and he looked good a bit off-kilter a bit sloppy but that can be corrected and then?!?

God, to see ANY horse get pulled out like that, to witness the heroics of that jockey fighting that horse's desire to run, recognizing his horse is injured and fighting against everything they've ever trained that horse to do and feel and believe. To bring him down, and all of that gilded winged hope just burning to the ground. It's so horrible. The last time I watched a horse go down like that it was that mare whose name I can't remember, I was just a kid but I loved her with my whole heart and it just wrecked me. This is just awful. Fuck.

I keep thinking there's going to be some big grand beautiful healing gesture and there's not. Something symbolic and mighty, something to tip the scales back away from what I walked into when I went back into New Orleans the first time, my house, my city, my friends. Maybe I've felt that after all the "tragedies" of my life, that something amazing would have to happen as well, and why is that? I really wanna know; how is it I can keep believing that? Why am I every year lining up with all the other yokels to argue about whether or not this year's Derby winner can take the Triple Crown?

And after the hurricane especially, there is no big moment, there's no extravagent romance, it's just tiny precious sparks of beauty and the big ones? It seems the world can't manage them, it seems there's no strength for them anymore, if there ever was - the very idea seems so quaint and nostalgic. I must sound so quaint and nostalgic, not edgy at all, not a bad-ass chick, no tattoos, no Pabst Blue Ribbon halter-tops. I feel so naive and so sad for that horse. I don't mean that in any sort of hyper-dramatic way, it's just, well. It crunches my heart up to love a horse that has to go down like that and to know that what I feel only barely compares to how sick all his people feel but I'm not gonna stop believing in horses or anything else that's wrapped up in here. I might want to - thinking that might prevent me from feeling some pain, y'know? Low risk, low pain, right? But I can't and that's just that.