men behaving badly August 11, 2007
Sometimes you just want to say . . . “WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?”
My son Leicester was in the Edward Albee play, “The Goat,” where the dad announces to the family that he’s fallen in love with a goat that he met in someone’s barnyard. Still, this is just fucked up.
heating and cooling January 28, 2007
There has been a mini-drama going on around here in regard to my air conditioner. I wanted the two units moved up onto the roof, one of the units needed the compressor replaced, and I needed new electrical work and ducts to make all that stuff function and to tie in the new Dangerblond Sports Bar and Sleep Research Center to the climate controlls.
David loves to tell me “I better take care of this for you,” and I love to hear it. I didn’t want to worry my pretty little head about the finer points of freon evacuation, so I said “go for it.”
He went about it correctly, getting three companies over here to give bids, which were all over the map. We chose the guy with the lowest quote and David called him. And called him, and called him, and called him. He never showed up, and the next-lowest bidders were too high in David’s opinion. He and Michael went ahead and put in the new ducts in the Palace Wing so they could close up the ceiling, and we just put that headache on the back burner.
So, then I go out with my friends, minding my own business, and I meet this cute guy in a “hey, baby, what’s your sign”-type situation.
My sign is “soft shoulder.” We got to talking and I asked him what he did.
“Uh, I work for my cousin.”
“Doing what?”
“Uh, heating and cooling.”
“Oh my god, where have you been all my life?”
I got Cousin over to take a look and talk with David. I swear to god, they practically compared dicks.
“Yes, I know that, Dave. I’m trying to tell you I know what I’m doing so don’t worry about it. You don’t know it, but I’m smart.”
“Oh, you’re smart? Well, what does that make me?”
“That makes you a genius, man.”
Cousin had to inspect the ducts that David put in to make sure they were correct. David rolling his eyes and going “Pfft.”
The next day, there were guys crawling all over my house, hoisting the units, doing this and that, and for a price less than the lowest quote we got before. Cousin has an electrician on call, and he came over today. The new compressor comes in next week. David insisted on cutting the hole in the roof because, “they are going too fast.”
Now, David is one-quarter pleased that this work is getting done finally, and at a good price, by nice guys who appear to be trustworthy. And he’s three-quarters pissed off that I found them without his help and that Cousin and I have the ability to disturb each other’s electrons.
“David, he’s married. I need that like I need a hole in my head.”
“You know what? You remind me of the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forrid. When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad, she drove me right out of my fuckin’ god-damned mind.”
I’m telling you, if life was fair, and people were good and right, and women fell for the man who tried the hardest, worried the most and cared every day, I would be in love with David. But it ain’t and I’m not, and I’m beyond the time of my life where I told men what they wanted to hear.
Josh and Brian jokingly accused me of taking advantage of David and I had to set them straight. Don refinanced this house right before the hurricane so that I could get some work done here that was desperately overdue, I’m talking leaks, termites and holes in the walls. I had an architect and a contractor lined up, but no contracts signed, when the flood blew everything out of the water, so to speak. I spent a lot of money living in Houston (Thanks, Houston - For Nothing!), so I scaled back the project.
David is a designer, carpenter, plumber, one man band, and he told me that he wanted to help me with this because he wants to make my life easier. I have known from the beginning how David feels about me and I have not let him do one thing for me for free. I pay him from the house funds, and I pay him very well. I pay Michael more than what he’s actually worth, because David insists on that. Michael obliges by doing anything and everything I ask him to do.
Don, meanwhile, comes over here an inspects things periodically and he is more than happy with what is being done. Ecstatic is not too strong a word. Don has also hired David and Michael to do some desperately overdue projects at the Jazz and Heritage Foundation offices. No one is being taken advantage of, everybody’s happy, and, should there be another hurricane and this whole house blows down, the part that David has re-built ain’t going nowhere.
the war on katherine December 13, 2006
I am finishing with exams today, but poor Katherine still has Evidence and Con Law. Those are two tough classes. As if she didn’t have enough going on, her ex-boyfriend has picked now to mount some kind of passive-aggressive holiday offensive to get her attention.
She received a text message from him yesterday, telling her that he was dining in their favorite New York restaurant with his new girlfriend, but he wished he was there with Katherine instead.
Then she remembered that he called on Sunday, telling her that he couldn’t find his heavy jacket and asking her if she had it. Busy studying, she just said, “no.” Now she knows that she was supposed to ask, “why do you need your heavy jacket?” Then, he could tell her he was going to New York. She would then drop everything and get back togther with him.
Katherine thinks it’s a great example of his self-centered personality that he’s acting like such a drama queen while she is in exams. She is also insulted because he apparently thinks she’s so shallow that she’ll get back together with him just so she can have someone to take her to New York. I can’t help but think of the poor new girlfriend, sitting in a restaurant like a fucking prop, thinking she is on a romantic trip to New York, while the drama queen is busy trying to get Katherine’s attention.
I told Katherine that she may not be happy in her love life at the moment, and it’s hard to spend the holidays alone when you enjoy being in a relationship. She is a great and sincere girl, though, and she deserves someone on her level. His actions have caused the opposite of their intention. I said, “Katherine, you think you were attracted to this guy? Just wait until you meet someone who is higher than him on the scale of absolute manliness.”
dangerblond unplugged November 28, 2006
I lifted something heavy the other day and pulled a muscle in my shoulder. It left me *gasp* unable to type. I really couldn’t do much else either except rest the muscle, so it’s much better now. Unfortunately, I missed the Mama Roux Pot Luck because it hurt to hold my head up on Sunday.
On Saturday, I put the lights back up in Shannon’s garden. I, um, made it kinda hard for anyone wanting to take them down again. Thierry had nothing to say except for how worried he was about the lights. Why? Because they put lights out there one time years ago and they stopped working. Well, they are not meant to last forever and the dead lights will just become trellises. I am sure most of the lights will be working a year from now. They are not meant to be left on while they are unattended, they are for an hour or two of pleasure while you are in the garden at night. I swear, you would think I am trying to burn this guy’s house down.
But I’m not; quite the opposite. It looks beautiful back there now, day and night. I picked up four mismatched chairs from the flea market on Jefferson Highway, and I brought a hurricane lamp from my extensive stash. On the way to Shannon’s, I saw an enormous boiling pot that someone had poked holes in the bottom of and used to light a fire in it. I pulled over and grabbed it. It smelled like urine and smoke. I brought it to Shannon’s and started another fire. I burned most of the rest of the debris, although I could get together another good one if we have another cold night. The neighbors on both sides were out and I asked them if the smoke was bothering them. They said they liked it, and it was keeping the mosquitos down.
Shannon is loving the garden and her dog, Birdie, is literally digging it. We found a few more herbs and everything we planted is perking up nicely. She has some areas that are practically sunlight-free. We are going to try some cast iron plants and some ferns in those super-shady spots. It’s going to look like the winter camp for traveling gypsies.
Now I’ve got Meredith and Brian all excited about their garden. They also have banana plant issues. The weather has been fantastic for gardening. I think I like gardening for my friends, it’s a Christmas present that keeps on giving.
Meredith has big news - she is leaving her law firm where the men go out to lunch together and don’t invite her. She’s going to be an Orleans Parish Assistant District Attorney. This is good news for Dangerblond. I can always use more people around to get me out of trouble, what with my driving, stick-burning, and such.
I went to see my psychiatrist yesterday to change my antidepressant. I’m going to be taking the same thing Chris Rose is taking, so I’ve got that going for me. He asked me how the rest of my life is going.
“Well, I’m feeling very cynical.”
“Is that because of law school?”
“Yes, partly. Also living here. Also because men are so weird.”
“Yes, they are.”
“They are immature, selfish and they lie like fucking rugs.”
“Some of them are worse than that. I have patients who are in a world of pain because of things men have done.”
“I might be better off without a man in my life. I don’t want to have to swallow a bunch of bullshit just to have peace in the family.”
“People do it.”
“I’ve done it. But I was never very good at it. I want to be a bitch on wheels.”
“Why?”
“Because when you treat people badly and act like a bitch, all of a sudden they are all over you, trying to make you like them. If you are good to them and treat them right, they kick you to the curb. If you intimidate people, they give you what you want. If you are sweet to them, they send you to the back of the line.”
“I can’t really argue with you. But I don’t think that’s you.”
“No, I really want to be nice to people. Life is hard enough without more bitches in the world. I just want to be able to play the bitch card when I need it. And I want an improved bullshit-detector for Christmas.”
“Ha! Don’t we all?”
Before I went to the shrink, I went to Cox Cable’s new office on Elysian Fields and dropped off my converter box and had the cable TV shut off. While I was there waiting (being nice and being last), I watched more television on their four huge screens than I have in a month. I am not going to miss the commercials for over-priced and under-whelming Christmas junk.
Later, Josh and Brian asked, “but how are you going to watch football?”
I don’t watch football unless it’s the Saints, so I am hoping my friends will invite me over on football days. Of course, anyone is welcome to come over to the Mansion and watch my European historical costume dramas from Netflix. Those old-fashioned stories are full of such incredible men.
gimme that olde-tyme porne November 15, 2006
Shannon had her gall bladder removed yesterday and went home the same day. It was a piece of cake compared to getting her ribs cracked open, but she’s suffering today. Just getting put to sleep for an operation has lingering effects that it takes a while to shake.
Shannon is supposed to host Book Club at her house tomorrow night and she didn’t want to let the mere removal of a major organ stand in her way. I don’t think she will be totally up to speed, but Katherine and I were planning to help her get it together, anyway. She chose “Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure,” by John Cleland. It’s basically 300-year-old hard-core porn. It’s sort of amazingly porny. I haven’t finished it yet because I keep getting flushed and having to lie down. It’s in the public domain and it’s very short. You can download it free from several different websites.
Even at my age, I am still shocked at what people got up to back in the olden dayes. I was at a book fair with my friend Blair Ziegler once and we found a book by Patrick Dennis called “Little Me.” Patrick Dennis is the author of “Auntie Mame.” “Little Me” is a comic satire illustrated with old black and white porn photographs from the early 1900s. I said, “these must be staged, right?”
“No. They are quite real.”
“Noooo. They took photographs of full penetration back in those days?”
“Daaarling. Do you know when the first porn movie was filmed?”
“When?”
“About five minutes after the invention of the camera.”
We had a gully-washing storm beginning last night and continuing this morning. How cool is it that every time I put plants into the ground it rains like hell for a whole day? Jesus wants Dangerblond to have a nice garden.
Unfortunately, the storm made the power go off sometime during the night. As a result, Katherine and I both slept through our first classes because our alarms didn’t go off. Oh, well. There are few things more pleasurable than lazing around in bed on a dark, rainy morning.
Last week, I watched “Friends with Money,” on pay-per-view. God, what a depressing movie. Three of the four main actresses are some of my favorites - Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand and Joan Cusack, but they played the most horrible group of “friends” I have ever seen. Jennifer Anniston played the fourth friend, the one who was a loser and supposed to be having trouble getting a date. Yeah, that was totally believable. Not.
I asked Shannon if she had seen it, and she hated it too.
She said, “what exactly was the point of that movie? That you should find a dumb rich guy and marry him?”
Now, I’m not going to kick a guy out of bed for being rich, but dumb is a total deal-breaker.
truth and consequences September 9, 2006
I’m turning the termite room into a new bedroom/pleasure palace for me. I was planning Grandma’s Pleasure Palace before the flood, so I’ve modified and scaled back my ideas, but still operating from the pleasure principle. That room has a private bathroom and a door that opens onto the back patio. My two back-door neighbors have torn down their beautiful brick fences and they are replacing them with very tall wooden fences. David found out that one of them is paying $16,000 for his wooden fence. Gag. With this huge barrier between us, I will be able to sun-bathe naked on my patio if I want to because I will be completely hidden from their view. I’m going to put in fragrant blooming plants back there and make it an extension of my new bedroom.
I told David that I want a large bathtub in the back corner, open to the bedroom, and only the toilet enclosed in a “water closet.” He could not digest that information at all.
“You want it open? With the bath tub visible from the bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“But then anyone who’s in the bedroom can see you while you’re bathing.”
Michael was grinning from ear to ear. It sounded great to him.
“Well, I rarely entertain people in the bedroom, but by the time they enter that holy of holies, what’s the harm in a little public bathing?”
He tried to talk me into enclosing the bathtub, acting as though I was unaware of what most people do. David is a man who hung out at Andy Warhol’s factory and who has lived in New York City for almost his whole life. I can’t believe this is the first time he’s ever heard of a woman who wants her bathtub in the bedroom.
“You know, there are people who do things like that. There are people who like very unconventional rooms in their houses.”
“Yes, but they can’t have that unless other people quit playing dumb and stop acting like they are dealing with a conventional person who is afraid to do anything different.”
He started to come around, but this was Thursday and I was very tired from the law school week. I told him to just proceed with that in mind and if we can’t make it work I’ll enclose the tub. I don’t want to get into any tension with David, because, like most artists, he will do an unbelievable job and give me way more than my money’s worth if he starts to love it. If he hates it, everything will still come into place, but it will be slower and grudging, with a lot of muttered “muthah fuckah” and “this piece of shit” going on.
Thursday night, David wanted to hang out and he was excited and talking about the house. I didn’t want to talk and especially didn’t want to listen to a human voice, so I basically threw him out. I slept like a rock and woke up at about 10 yesterday morning. David arrived with a mocha latte for me and he and Michael went to work redistributing the weight of the roof in the termite room, soon to be pleasure palace.
I went to Langenstein’s and picked a lot of fresh food. I called Shannon and invited her and Katherine to come over and eat pork chops with me. Both of their other halves were working, so I had my girls to myself. I love cooking in my new kitchen. I’m still treating the counter-top like it’s some 13th century gilded altar-piece that can’t be allowed to have a drop of food on it. I rushed around and got the beans and rice on the stove and marinated the pork chops. When I cook for Shannon, I hide all the cans and packaging from anything store-bought and processed that I use in the bottom of the garbage before she gets here. Shannon uses everything fresh, down to spices. She grates or roasts what she needs because the flavor is so much better.
Dangerblond, not so much. When I had three teenage boys who liked nothing so much as meat and potatoes, I dropped my cordon bleu pretensions. It’s no fun to knock yourself out working on a gourmet meal, only to have your kids turn their noses up at it because they don’t like onions. It was also cheaper to give the masses what they wanted, let’s face it. Over the years, I developed short-cuts that would curl Shannon’s, not to mention Thierry’s, hair. Instant Hollandaise sauce comes to mind. Oh, the horror.
I decided to use the gas grill that Leicester left here about four years ago to cook the big thick pork chops. It had a full propane tank and Michael showed me how to use it. I told the guys I was having Shannon and Katherine over, and they immediately began cleaning all their stuff off the patio and even got out the blower and blew all the leaves off for me. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to re-adjust to real life after having two men around the house all this time, doing every little thing I ask for.
I invited them to stay and have dinner with us and Michael said he would love to but his wife would “put [him] down in the cawpet” if he did such a thing. David was eager to stay because he really doesn’t know Shannon very well. When she and Katherine arrived, they were dressed, hair-do’d and made up like it was dinner at Antoine’s.
“What the fuck, ya’ll? It’s just pork chops with black beans, yellow rice and salad. I didn’t even do dessert.”
Katherine said that after dinner they were going to Tipitina’s to see Bone-a-Rama and they were going to dress me up and take me with them. I said, “Oh. OK,” having no intention at all of leaving the compound. I managed to cook the pork chops pretty well on the grill and the dinner was a success. David was captivated by Shannon and Katherine. All dressed up and with every hair in place, Shannon could pass for Katherine’s sister. David is one of those men who adores women, especially beautiful women, and he is not shy about saying it. He kept telling Katherine how lovely she is, so now those two are BFFs.
Shannon and Katherine can sometimes operate like a comedy team when they tell stories. Katherine did a spot-on imitation of her country cousin, whom she is constantly trying to corrupt. During the evacuation, Katherine tried to get her cousin to watch “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” The cousin thought it was a show where gay men meet a straight man and turn him into a homosexual. When Katherine explained what it was, the cousin said,”I don’t think my mama would want me watching this,” and left the room. This sounds like a story about a 12-year-old, but this girl is around 18.
Shannon’s father is a huge right-wing religious Republican and he and Shannon and Katherine are constantly going round and round about that subject. He recently got out of the hospital and he and Shannon’s step mother are going to Antarctica on some kind of cruise or something. Katherine bought him Al Gore’s book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” because it tells about the melting ice shelves in Antarctica. When he saw the name “Al Gore,” Shannon said her father went apoplectic. Apparently the word from that quarter on Gore is that the American people weren’t stupid enough to elect him, so he is going about it another way now, with all this global warming “malarkey.” That Al Gore is just a drama queen who can’t stand to be out of the public eye. As Katherine said, students and young people are not the only ones who are wrapped in layer upon layer of willful ignorance.
The subject turned to my blog. Shannon loves it and she doesn’t know how she managed to get along all this time without reading Dangerblond every day. Katherine and her group of friends at Loyola Law School also read it and she says they love it. Many of our friends who have moved away keep up with us via Dangerblond, and everyone is curious about what is going on in New Orleans. I really enjoy writing it and I don’t write it for anyone else but myself, but I’m thrilled to hear it when people say they enjoy reading what I have written. Shannon, who has always admired my writing, thinks revealing my secrets and the betrayals I have withstood has been very therapeutic for me and it has helped me avoid more entanglements with men who are bullshit artists.
The name of the blog alone is a daily reminder to me to stay far away from the Steves of the world. Unfortunately, the selfish way that Steve used me to feed his own ego has also had a negative effect on me that hasn’t gone away yet. The part of me that allows me to trust people has been crushed and bent out of shape. It took me a long time, many years of hard work, to get to a place where I could trust people, and I have not forgiven him for taking that away from me. What took years to build up was torn down in a few minutes. I was so ashamed of my gullibility; I’m supposed to be a smart woman. He sucked me in like a professional actor, and still, to this day, I suspect everyone of acting. I’ll get my ability to trust back, I’ve done it before, but I have a strong survival mechanism that would turn me into a lone wolf if I didn’t keep it quelled. I just don’t feel right about using people, but sometimes it seems very tempting.
Oh, speaking of Steve, I saw in the paper the other day that his famous uncle, Jack Dangermond, is involved in some political shenanigans in California. He is very connected with a congressman named, of all things, Jerry Lewis. Not THE Jerry Lewis. It’s a small world, I am reminded once again.
David is very wary of the whole idea of blogging. He said that he is against it because people can find out things about you (me) that they have no business knowing. Shannon and I both said at the same time, “why do you care?” I used to be very worried about what people thought of me, because I was basically trying to fool everyone into thinking I was a person with a happy childhood who was well brought up. It’s a form of telling people what they want to hear, but it’s still a big fat lie. Now that my cover is thoroughly blown on that, I have nothing to hide. Having a blog, especially one as popular as this one, is a very good way to weed out the bullshit artists. Insincere people don’t want to have anything to do with a woman who tells the truth on the World Wide Web. And I don’t want anything to do with them either.
We ended up drinking three bottles of wine, laughing, joking and entertaining each other no end. No one went to Tipitina’s. A good time was had by all.
great expectations September 2, 2006
After hurricane season is over, I might have the cable TV shut off. I almost never watch it. Deadwood is over now until next year. I don’t get as much enjoyment from watching my favorite shows on HBO now that my real life has become so exciting. I joined NetFlicks because nothing I want to watch is ever on television. And everything that is on television is getting worse and worse. I’ve been on a BBC run lately, and I just finished Martin Chuzzlewit last week.
I am expecting to get Lumumba and When We Were Kings on Tuesday. When We Were Kings is a documentary about the Muhammed Ali and George Forman fight in Kinshasa, Zaire, in 1976. The insane dictator Mobutu paid the two fighters millions of dollars to come to Zaire (name now changed back to Congo) while the people who lived there were starving. All this fascination with the Congo is still enveloping me since I finished The Poisonwood Bible. Has a movie ever been made from that book? It seems like a natural for liberal Hollywood to jump right on that. It takes place in Africa, but the leading characters are four blond, blue-eyed white girls. Heh Heh. Is Dakota Fanning working?
Heather has chosen the next Book Club opus, and it’s from my neck of the woods, William Faulkner’s The Reivers. This reflects pretty badly on me, but even though I am from Greenville, Mississippi, and I actually have friends whose grandparents hung out with Faulkner, I’ve only read The Sound and The Fury. Loved it, though. I ordered a book that has The Town, The Mansion and The Reivers in the same volume, so maybe one day I’ll get time to read the other two.
I’ve been feeling quite serene here at the suddenly very comfortable Rancho Dangerblond. I haven’t felt like leaving the compound all weekend. David thinks I am some kind of recluse, but he is very pleased that I am very pleased with my home. Honestly, with two men obeying my every command around here, why would I want to go anywhere? It’s nice to have a couple of men around the mansion, but it’s also nice to be left alone, too. There is a lot to do here anyway, because I have to go through the stuff from the termite room. David and Michael are going to extend the flooring in the attic so I can jam more stuff up there.
Today, I picked up a box of old letters that came out of the termite room, expecting them to be Naomi’s. They actually turned out to be the correspondence of an artist named Kay Johnson. Don has a painting of Kay’s here in the house, and I have always loved it. She signed her paintings “KaJa.” I’ll take a photo of it and post it. I know Johnson has been dead for a long time, and she probably didn’t have any children, so it’s possible that this is a box of her effects that were given to Naomi when she died. Naomi had an art gallery in New Orleans for over 50 years and she worked very hard to promote and sell the work of artists she took on. I don’t think Kay Johnson produced that much work, and I don’t think Naomi was able to sell it, but she really believed in her as an artist.
When I saw the name Kay Johnson, I looked through the stuff in the box, because I love the painting that is here so much and I am curious about her. I dropped everything and sat in the middle of the floor with the box for over an hour. There were a couple of pictures of her and some sketches she made. There were some really cool things like a very old packet of cigarette rolling papers with a wood-cut print of a house on the cover and the title, “Bayou St. John, New Orleans.” There were many cancelled checks and her studio leases. There were some letters that she wrote to other people that were returned, and were still sealed. Most of the letters in the box were in big bundles each from her mother and her brother (I think), Dr. Harold Johnson. They were mostly from the 1940s.
The letters were old, moth-eaten and in very bad condition. I pulled out a couple of random letters from her mother, whom she called “Duckie,” and one from her brother, who called Kay “Katherine.” It was amazing how much I learned about her just from reading three letters. Kay was the daughter of a banker in Waterloo, Iowa. She went to college during World War II and studied art and philosophy. Her family was very educated and well to do, and they seem to have had great expectations of their children. One letter discussed what to do with the family Stradivarius, which both Kay and her brother had played as children.
Lucky Kay apparently never had to work at a non-art job. After college she moved to New York and lived on Bleecker Street with a nice allowance from her parents. She wrote poetry, which was very intense judging from the few fragments in the box, and tried to write a novel (not in the box). After a while she started painting and became a painter exclusively after that. Sometime in the late 1940s, she moved to the French Quarter and met Naomi. I have only seen two of her paintings, which are figurative and very expressionistic, like Matisse or Modigliani.
I could have sat there all day reading the letters, but I had to tear myself away and tend to other things. I don’t suppose Kay would mind me reading her letters and sketchbook notes. She seems to have been a ferociously talented woman who wanted to be recognized. No one knows her name today. It’s facinating to me that a smart, talented girl from Waterloo, Iowa, made her way to New Orleans half a century ago and became a tiny but lasting part of our narrative.
David is working much faster than he was on the kitchen because he is worried about rain. They are rebuilding the termite room from the inside and he doesn’t want it open any longer than it has to be. They were working on it today and I suddenly heard David yelling at Michael. It was kind of bad, and he kind of kept on. Neither of them knew that I heard it. I’ve never heard David doing that before, and I guess he is anxious and trying to get Michael to pick up speed. Michael is a gentle giant, but I would be terrified to talk to him like that.
I decided that the personal interaction between David and me will have to stop at friendship. I think of him as one of my closest friends, and after all he has done for me I will be devoted to him forever. He has been completely honest with me and has allowed me to be honest with him without getting dramatic. I can’t really give him what he wants because he wants an old-fashioned patriarchal relationship. I can’t tell you how good it feels to be with someone who has an impulse to take care of me and make me happy. He makes me very happy, nearly every day. But David is very articulate, and he has articulated carefully for me, almost as a warning, that has a possessive nature. I have seen hints of it toward me, even though he is breaking his neck to hide it from me because he knows I won’t like it.
We are never going to mesh in that area, and it’s funny to see David trying to pretend to be as much of a free spirit as I am. He is a patriarch, and he can’t help it. When he was yelling at Michael and he thought I couldn’t hear, I heard the soundtrack for the occasional looks I get from him. I know he has opinions on what I do and what I should do, but he doesn’t say them. He knows all this stuff, we’ve talked about it, but he still can’t wait to get over here and see me every day. Sometimes he picks up a mocha latte for me. I’m not in love with David, but I love him for not expecting that from me. I’ll not forget it.
[Edited because Kay Johnson moved to New Orleans sometime in the late 1940s, not late 1950s. I'm not even sure if she lived until the late 1950s.]
true tales of old new orleans August 12, 2006
Here is a sort of funny, but mostly disturbing story about when I was dating Don. I was working for a company in the French Quarter and he worked at Le Petit Theater. I think it was in 1987 or 88. I swear this is all true. Don and Blair Ziegler can attest to it.
Don and I were going to have lunch and he told me he had a meeting at the theater at 11:00. I walked there to meet him, and I got to the lobby at around noon. There was a red-haired woman talking to Don’s assistant. I heard the assistant say that Don was still in a meeting. I had to go to the restroom, so off I went.
When I went to wash my hands, the red-haired woman was standing there. She introduced herself to me. Then she told me that she was Don’s fiancee.
“Uh, Don Marshall?”
“Yes.”
I thought, you know, you can’t trust anyone. Here’s this guy having lunch and dinner with me, inviting me everywhere, meeting my kids, and he has a fucking girlfriend. I don’t want to be ugly, but this was not a pretty girl. I thought, wow, she must be loaded. Fuckin’ Don. New Orleans’ answer to Cary Grant.
“Yes, I just got back to town last week. I’ve been producing Mick Jagger’s US tour. I’ve known Mick for years. Don and I reconnected like we had last seen each other yesterday. I lost my last fiance in a car accident. Don gave me a shoulder to cry on, and you know how it goes. I’ve bought a condo in the Quarter. You’ll have to come over and see William’s room.”
“OK. Well, it was very nice meeting you. Best wishes to you.”
I thought, THAT is weird. Le Petit Theater has a beautiful patio and lots of nice little nooks and crannies to hide out in. I sat on a bench behind a plant until I saw Don. We went out the door. I can’t remember where we had lunch, but probably the Gumbo Shop. I told him that I met his fiancee in the ladies’ room. He started laughing.
“Stop it. She told me you were getting married.”
“Well, we’re not.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s some woman from New Orleans and she’s been working with the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon and this person and that person and she wants to film a children’s play.”
“Film it for what?”
“To put it in Cannes and Sundance and become the next Steven Spielberg.”
“Oh. Well, she’s really weird. She says she has a room in her apartment for William.”
“She does? A room for what? Maybe I could get her to babysit him.”
“Don, I’m pretty sure she thinks you and William are coming to live with her.”
“No way. Two weeks at the most.”
“Stop it. I think she’s crazy. Promise me you won’t let William go anywhere with her.”
“I promise I won’t let William go anywhere with her.”
“Not even to Haagen Dasz.”
“Not even to Haagen Dasz.”
This woman was around for a few more months, but she avoided me after the bathroom incident. At that time, I hadn’t yet met as many delusional people as I now have. She shook me up. I found out that Blair had heard her saying some of the same kinds of things, so I hadn’t misunderstood her. He remembered her from high school and she had made up all kinds of stories back then, too. She infuriated Blair and he tried to challenge her once on her grandiose stories. “Ooooh,” she said to him, “you’re craaazy. You’re an angry person, Blair. You need help.”
Blair said, “it’s Ronald Reagan’s fault. He threw all the nut cases out on the streets and now they are running around filming everything. She probably got a genius grant.”
Ms. Genius picked a fight with everyone working on the children’s play, down to the smallest child, and dropped out of sight without having made any film. New and more powerful anti-psychotic drugs were developed, and the rest is history.
dangerblondvue house and gardens August 11, 2006
My moods have always been affected by my surroundings. I don’t necessarily get into a funk if I’m in an ugly room, but a beautiful space always lightens me up. David and Michael are at the point where they are painting the rooms, and everyone in the new New Orleans knows what that means. They are getting to the end. There might be additional work done on the west wing, but it’s not blog-ready yet.
I have been doing what can only be called “nesting.” I’m washing everything and putting it away it its new space, hanging art works, oiling furniture. I have nested many times before, but this is the first time I’ve done it with the idea of just living by myself. I keep thing of Eudora Welty’s story, “Why I Live at the P.O.” The narrator moves out of the house with her nagging family and moves into the Post Office, where she arranges “everything katty-corner. The Way I Like It.”
The other night, David was floating yet more repaired cracks in my ceiling and I had the TV on. I had never seen the movie “Sleeping With the Enemy,” and it was on AMC channel. Julia Roberts lives with this controlling husband in a glass beach house that is like a prison. Her husband hassles her because of things like the bathroom towels are out of alignment, and he’s also a creepy batterer. Finally she escapes and moves to a little cottage where everything is cluttered and funky. After David left, I had to turn it off because I couldn’t watch the “woman in jeopardy” act.
Today, he came back to find me carefully lining up my shining wine glasses. He gave me a wary look. “The uptight guy in the beach house wants to meet you.” Heh Heh. Wait a few weeks. Line up the towels? Ha! Control-freak boy would be lucky to find a clean one.
For those of you who think Dangerblond escaped the disaster completely unscathed, I have to point out that my gutters were full of leaves when I evacuated, so the torrential rain SOAKED through the WALL in that corner. I asked David if he could repair the corner. Then I told him I had too many branches and vines growing on the roof in the back. “Get me a ladder and a saw.” Upshot: no more crap on the roof, and a new pile of clippings taller than me. I’m sure no one will be happier than the Christoviches, who live behind me. They probably thought I was going for the Tudor look, but with a genuine thatch on the roof. “That Dangerblond woman is so rustic.”
David’s assessment of Katherine’s moving out is “she’ll be back,” but nevertheless he has got my house locked up tighter than the Louvre. Any would-be Dangerblond stalkers take note that I think the door in the back is booby-trapped. Try the front.
Today was pretty busy with Jason moving Katherine’s stuff out and Micheal and David buzzing around. I have been playing WWOZ really loud and dancing around with happiness while rearranging the feathers in my newly painted nest. I think the smell of paint works on me like inhaling speed. I was outside actually scrubbing out the garbage can (I know, I know) when Don drove up. He ran up acting like he was in a panic. “Turn the water off! Turn the water off!”
“What’s the matter?”
“The water bill this month was $300! What the hell are you doing with all that water?”
Well, it beats me. I haven’t watered any plants because it’s been raining so much my plants look like they are mainlining Miracle Grow. My kitchen has been out of service, so there has been very little cooking and cleaning. I drink bottled water. David and Michael haven’t used that much water. Katherine hasn’t been here, so she’s not using water. Frankly, I’ve gone a little bohemian with all the chaos and guys around, and I’ve dropped the habit of bathing every day.
“Should I cut back on toilet-flushing? Christ, it’s like Soviet Russia.”
Of course, Don knows very well what I am doing with all the water - nothing. The water bill here has never been above $100 before last month, when it went up to $200. He said, “They are screwing everybody.”
I have to interject here that Don Marshall is New Orleans’ biggest fan. He was born here and I doubt that he will ever leave here, especially after what has happened. You will never hear him trash this city or say it has no future. He was back here as soon as he could get here after the flood, helping to hose New Orleans down and helping people to save art and vinyl records from their ruined houses. He is nice enough to provide for his estranged wife’s profligate water use, not to mention my flagrant abuse of electricity and communications providers, during our period of readjustment, absent any court order. My point is that Don is a person of the kind that we want living here. He should not be tortured in exchange for maintaining a house in a nice neighborhood. We are much luckier than most, so I can just imagine that some people are saying “fuck this” and moving out of town after opening that water bill. Don’t think it’s a good sign that Don isn’t saying “fuck this.” He is crazy in love with this city. By the time they get rid of Don, everyone will be gone.
In addition to the real problems of living in New Orleans, I unfortunately read some of the comments to an article where people from “out there” bloviated about the fantasy problems of living here. I blame Suspect Device for this, I saw this link on his blog. I know these are people who need to get out more, but it is still deflating to read idiot-grams where they say we are all 20 feet below sea level, all of New Orleans was destroyed, it’s bound to happen again, why fight nature, let it go back to the sea, etc.
Later, Michael realized it was Friday. I have been doing the same thing. I keep thinking it’s a day earlier. Anyway, he said, “Let’s go to Liuzza’s!” We went to Liuzza’s on Bienville and had cold draft Abita beer and fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade. They had seafood poboys and I had a Caesar salad with anchovies. It was just like the old days. On the back of the menu, there is a photo of Liuzza’s sitting in about six feet of water. Inside the restaurant today, it looked just like it did before the flood. We thanked everyone we saw for coming back and working there and for being there. Michael was so happy he was glowing.
Tonight my friends are celebrating a new job for one among the group, but I couldn’t drag myself away from my nest. I’m at home here. We were at home this afternoon when we were at Liuzza’s. I can’t remember if I ever said that a group of people should just leave their homes and go live somewhere else. I hope I never said anything that stupid. I can tell you that I know better than to say that now.
[Edited to add: I forgot to write about how much Don loved the house. He said he can see why I don't want to leave the compound. Also, on the way to Liuzza's, we saw a huge amount of water bubbling up out of the street at the corner of City Park Boulevard and Bienville. So, Don, your $300 is in a puddle at the corner of City Park and Bienville.]
old school August 9, 2006
My friend, Adrastos, forwarded this excellent blond joke to me:
Two bored casino dealers were waiting at the craps table. A very attractive blond woman from Alabama arrived and bet twenty-thousand dollars ($20,000) on a single roll of the dice.
She said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I feel much luckier when I play topless.”
With that, she stripped to the waist, rolled the dice, and yelled, “Come on, baby…. Southern Girl needs new clothes!”
As the dice came to a stop, she jumped up-and-down… and squealed… “YES! YES! I WON! I WON!”
She hugged each of the dealers… and then picked up her winnings and her clothes, and quickly departed.
The dealers stared at each other dumfounded. Finally, one of them asked, “What did she roll?”
The other answered, “I don’t know… I thought you were watching.”
Moral: Not all Southerners are stupid. Not all blondes are dumb. But, all men… are men.
Actually, I don’t agree with that last part. You don’t never know what a man’s gonna do. David is close to finishing all the work that I hired him for and I have already reached the end of my rope of self-control. I just couldn’t help it. He is a gentle, peaceful ex-hippy kind of person, but there is something about a man doing careful precise work with his hands that just seems so virile to me. I find him very attractive almost in spite of myself.
Don pronounced “he’s not your type.” But what is my type? My therapist says I’m repelled by people who can’t control their emotions and I look for the “James Bond type.” That’s the guy who looks good and doesn’t say much. He seems slightly above it all, and perhaps the conversation is too boring for him. It looks to me like he is having all kinds of intelligent thoughts and keeping them to himself. Unfortunately, while I am trying to be witty and alluring for Mr. James Bond, he’s usually thinking something profound along the lines of, “Hmm. I wonder if these pants make my ass look good?” or “Damn, I should have trimmed my nose hairs this morning.”
The James Bond type is an empty suit with a piece of rock where their hearts are supposed to be. Their truest love is the man in the mirror. Lying is second nature to them because other people are just a means to a personal end. With this type of man I think I have finally hit bottom like an alcoholic. I just simply can’t go there again. It takes too much out of me and it’s never going to work. I am never going to awaken a sleeping tiger, and if I do he will turn out not to be a tiger.
David is certainly no James Bond. He says what is on his mind, whether you will like it or not. He is respectful of other people and does not like to see anyone get hurt. He said that he was wary of me writing anything about him on the blog. I asked him why that was, because he is so upfront about everything. He said it was because he likes Don and does not want to offend him.
It’s hard for people to understand what is going on here, especially someone like David. It’s just not like that with Don and me. He is not jealous of me seeing other men. You can’t be jealous about someone you don’t love. Don told me I should “get over it,” and he’s not stupid enough to think I will “get over it” by living like a nun. Actually, I’m probably not going to get over it, but I will find a place for it in my own way and make it stop bothering me.
David had to live through the unfortunate experience several years ago of having his wife leave him for another man. It must have been awful, because the pain is something he remembers still. He thinks my interest in him will cause pain for Don. I tried to tell him that it won’t. He said you can never tell what people will do. He was enraged at the guy who stole his wife, and it shocked him. “I wanted to kill that son of a bitch for fucking my wife. And he knew it. He was scared of me.”
This possessiveness is definitely the code of the old-school male. “MY wife.” I meet very few men who even think that way any more. I can’t lie, I dig that and I am like that myself. Don is a very public person and people have always thought they can walk up to me and criticize him in his professional life. I used to bite my tongue while imagining myself biting their fucking noses off. How dare some self-important old bag criticize my husband! There is one particular old hag who seems to have mercifully dropped from the scene since the flood. She stabbed Don in the back in a big way several years ago and it got back to us. I would still cheerfully burn that witch at the stake to this day.
I said, “I know this is going to sound awful, but Don is much more concerned about you fucking up his kitchen than anything you might do with me.”
“Well. Then that fucking kitchen is gonna be perfect.”
