And How Resilient Is YOUR Skull?

Everyone I know who is not from here mention wanting to "take a break from chaos" when they go on vacation. And usually when they are saying, they're at the break point, reeling from the latest power outage or police scandal.

Just this month, my friend got pushed through a glass window, I got into a laughable fender bender where the woman is trying to squeeze me with an injury claim, and it took me a week to retrieve my parcel of pasta and Wheatables from the post office.

Add that to what I've soaked up since my last trip to NY six months ago, and I can feel the chaos clamping down: I assume the owner of the bar I'm sitting in is laundering money, someone's body was just peeled from the street I'm driving on, and the fat man in the suit who just passed me is working for BP and about to go back to his hotel room to have a prostitute delivered from Bourbon, drink himself stupid, or kill his wife.

Then my girlfriend and I take a morning stroll to the neighborhood bakery, where they're playing Dylan as two stylish gay boys flirt and some well-groomed lesbians pick up their scones.

We felt hot and left with our coffees in plastic cups.

Mamas Don't Let Your Daughters Grow Up to Be ...

I came out to my mom.

Coming out to me means that I met somebody who I wanted to date and they happened to be a woman. It means that I tried explaining to her that this fact does not matter to me and it shouldn't to her either.

Her reaction didn't go as hoped.

I see many similarities in my mother's reaction with my girlfriend's mother's reaction. Funny how they can be so textbook.

"But you're not meant for this lifestyle."

"Life isn't about what makes you happy."

"It's not natural."


Also makes you wonder whether this is really their heartfelt reaction or whether they're reacting to how they've been programmed by society, religion, or whatever to react.

The smoke is clearing and I still see my mother, I still see she loves my woman-dating ass, and i still know she loves to argue with me on "lifestyle choices." And I still love to argue with her. At least there's love.

I'm sure she didn't intend this, but in a way it's making me more of a fighter. Thanks mom.

But She's Got Heart

In the Tyson movie I just watched, all sorts of values were carouseled around. Bravery, heart, endurance, honesty, being true to yourself, faith, etc, etc.

Makes my head spin. So which of these should one go for? What if your religion excludes some. What if you can't fit em all into your psyche? What if you don't have even one?


What if you only think you do? Should you care? And why?

Thoughts?

The Power Of Attorney

This gin and water isn't doing it for me taste-wise. Hopefully it will sleep-wise.

Summary judgment, gross negligence... I like that: gross negligence. Sounds like something you'd throw around in divorce papers to make them sound tragic, or the result of wearing the same pair of socks too many times.

Law school: so far it means red beans and rice too many times a week, some confidence with just a touch more self-doubt, strange and suppressed people, and stress-induced acne.

But for some reason I'm still snuggling up to Torts. And also, there's so much more out there.

Five of Em

I heard gunshots just now outside my apartment for the first time since moving to New Orleans. About 5 of them, very staccato, slow and evenly spaced.

I thought at first that they were fireworks or something, but the abrupt silence of the chatter coming from upstairs was a signal - yeah, that was a gun.

I reacted less than I thought I would. Lay in bed for a moment with my copy of the Economist, sort of peeved at first that it interrupted my reading of a story on the Vatican covering up alter-boy rape.

Then I hypothesized that getting away from the window with the light shining through it could mean my life, so I leisurely got out of bed and stood in the frame of my doorway -- the place they tell you is strongest during earthquakes.

Should I turn my light off? Oh no, that would make me look suspicious to an outside predator piece in hand. Better to pretend I never heard anything.

So, well, I'm back in bed again in front of that same lit window just 15 minutes later thinking about what that shooter must be thinking and ... I have no idea. Probably, hopefully, not concerned with my lit window.

I hear the elephant above me stirring and stomping around... A sign that he's not to concerned about lit windows either. But I'm not sure about whose stirrings to believe.