Quiet Moments Before a Storm

    Today was one of those uniquely New Orleans days where much of the city was glued to television sets and radios while the rest planned parties and binges. With the approach of Tropical Storm (and soon to be Hurricane) Isaac, everyone had some choices to make. As of now, most residents seem to be planning to stay, which is not unusual for a category one or two hurricane. Unless the city issues an evacuation order, many people will probably remain and ride out the storm with cases of booze and bottles of water.

    I will most likely leave. The prospect of being without power for any extended period of time with a 20 month old is not one I relish. Assuming old Ike reaches hurricane strength and continues on his path towards the Big Easy, I will flee to the safety of my in laws' house on the North Shore tomorrow morning. Tony will not be coming with Charlie and me, at least not at first, which is a stressful concept.

     This storm is relatively weak at the moment and probably poses little threat beyond some wind damage and potential power outages. Still, splitting up my family during the approach of a hurricane, particularly on the anniversary of Katrina and with certain Katrina parallels being batted around, is not my favorite thing. All in all, it has been a less than comforting day.

    All of this made the cuddly, serene moments before Charlie's bed time tonight all the more precious. Every night when I put him to bed, we sing perhaps a dozen rounds of Old McDonald before really snuggling in deep and singing our nightly lullabye, "Hush, Little Baby." It is an extremely outdated and quite bizarre-to-begin-with little song, but my mother sang it to me, and I sing it to my baby.

    While I sing, Charlie wraps his arms around my neck and nuzzles my cheek. Sometimes he lifts his head to kiss me on the mouth right in the middle of lyrics. He is extraordinarily affectionate when he is tired. Normally, when the song is over, I cradle him in my arms and walk to his crib, where I lay him down and tuck him in. Tonight, as the song approached the end, he began to pout and whimper. When I stopped singing, he pleaded, "Again, again."And so we sang "Hush, Little Baby," again, and again, and again, four times, until finally he would relent and allow me to say goodnight.

     When I carried him into his room to put him to bed, I had a million things on my mind. I needed to pack a bag for our potential evacuation, I needed to take the trash out, and I needed to check the weather just one... more... time! Our extra rounds of lullabyes gave me time to put all that aside. Sitting in a gliding chair with my child's arms around my neck and his breath on my cheek melted my stress away.

    I know these are the moments I am going to look back on with teary eyes when my baby is all grown up and off to college or another state or some lady's marriage bed. Even more than that, they are the moments that keep me sane now. Thank goodness for tiny people!

Be safe, y'all.

 

A true/false thing

   We picked M up on the side of the road on our way into Ocean City, because when you're 17 everyone is your friend. She was on dope of some kind, but we didn't dig deep, we asked her for coke, and she provided. In parking lot traffic leading up to the bridge, we cut lines on someone's AP history binder and held them to the driver's face while he kept his eyes on the road. The summer safety seminar had not been lost on us.

     When we finally made it to the hotel, M said she was gonna split, but somehow she was still there in an hour and she had mixed drinks from someone's stash, and she was sitting cross legged on the bed and telling us about her step brother who had fucked her mom's mom. She told us about her first step father's brother who had told her when she was just a baby that penises worked like baby bottles. She laughed. She cut lines. We inhaled.

    We had to cross the street to get to the boardwalk, and we had to get to the boardwalk because that is where things happened. We ran into some of M's friends on the wrong side of the road. They invited us up to their condo to take a break, and we went. We peed with the door open with guys in their 20's watching. They fed us drugs and we repaid them with door open peeing, and M slipped me some tongue. She was gentle and sad and more full of longing then anyone I had ever been intimate with before. I suddenly wanted to take her home and scrub her face and maybe share my boyfriend with her. Then she laughed and took a swig of tequila from the bottle. "This bitch is hot," she laughed, and she fell onto a couch with her tongue down a 25 year old's throat.

    I left her alone there. I had known her for 6 hours when I heard that she had been murdered. She had acted expendable, boys whispered, but she had been soft and moist and sweet when you got close enough.

     We were on the boardwalk when I heard, and I was momentarily shaken because it could have been me, in a way, but could have been me only lasts so long when you're in a place where everything can be yours. I got another hole punched in my right ear's cartilage and paid with a kiss, and we laughed and danced on the dusty planks by the beach.

    I heard she died naked and fighting, which makes it worse, somehow. One of the guys she was with was hospitalized for a few weeks with a nasty stab wound. Another turned up dead the next season. They say he tried to jump from a hotel balcony into the pool, but other people who know people who know people said he landed on concrete on purpose. Everyone agrees he was deep in a horse hole anyway and wasn't likely to come back. His sister blames that girl who had to go and get herself murdered in his hotel room.

     I dedicated close to none of myself to thoughts of the sad girl we had picked up for an evening during that week. I got drunk with my friends and flirted with men and took showers with strangers. I accepted pills and hugs and swam in the ocean. But when I got home at the end of the week and sat in the dark with just my computer's light shining on me, I could see every line in my fingers, and they looked older than they should be, and I could smell that girl somehow, and I wept.

The death of authors

Someone I've never met who feels to me
Like an oldest friend
who saw me naked
And touched me in places that aren't ok
Reading words black on white
when He can't say them anymore
And bleeding red on cream
Deprive myself of food until
I am nothing but skeletons and hatred
and a longing for someone
I never knew
But who knew me

What Were They Thinking? (Stars Earn Stripes Edition)

NBC is a network that I try to avoid bashing due exclusively to my love for their Thursday night comedy line up. I mostly held my tongue during impressively bad moments of their Olympics coverage. I have even been willing to overlook Grimm. I cannot, however, give them a pass on this miscarriage they are calling Stars Earn Stripes.

Mind you, I have not seen this show. It is possible they have stumbled upon something breathtaking and cathartic that will change the way we look at war. But I doubt it.

The concept of the show is that a host of "celebrities" are assisted by special operatives from various military branches in executing tasks based on actual combat missions. The celebrities include Peekaboo Street, Nick Lachey, and Todd Palin. None of the contestants is anything to get excited about, in my opinion.

I expect that, throughout the episodes on this show, the contestants will repeatedly and emphatically state how difficult war is and how they have gained new found respect for actual servicemen. I know those comments will be coming from a good place, but it seems to me that they are insulting. To imply that playing games on TV is anything like actual war is insulting to us as a general population that has largely been complacent during the over-a-decade-long conflict in the Middle East, and to servicemen and women especially.

The veterans and current military men and women I have asked about this show seem to feel the same way. Trivializing the physical and emotional demands that war entails by comparing celebrity war games to the real thing makes them angry.

I am surprised that General Wesley Clark agreed to host this show. As someone who spent a career serving with men and women like the ones I spoke to, I can't imagine that he wouldn't anticipate the reactions I discussed above.

The one redeeming quality that this show has, as far as I can tell from previews alone, mind you, is that the contestants are playing for a sum of money to be donated to a veterans' charity of their choice. Still, NBC, maybe next time just give the money and keep the D-List celebs to yourselves.