Root Rage

My roots are out of control. They were peeking out just a teensy bit before I left on vacation three weeks ago but now I’ve got like two inches of black rootage contrasting nicely with my otherwise strawberry blonde head. Too put a positive spin on this, at least it’s not two inches of gray rootage, right? The problem is I went on vacation and when I got back Lexie (my friend and hair goddess) went on vacation and now I look like a high maintenance lady who decided to do something else with her hair budget. As my friend, Rebecca, says, “I think roots are kinda sexy, but two inch roots are bordering on crack whore territory. You know. Let’s see. Color my hair? Or buy a rock? Which will it be?” And since Lexie colors my eyebrows too, the look is really a little scary. I’m trying to act like I meant to do this, like when my across the street neighbor had six inches of snow white roots against her blacker than black locks, but she has lots of tattoos and vintage clothing to carry it off. I almost ran in to Walgreen’s yesterday for a box of Nice ‘N Easy but I know where that road takes me. I end up looking like Kelly Osbourne on acid.

I feel like that guy on the Ed Sullivan show twirling half a dozen plates on sticks. I’ve got my physical health, job and money plates going and the mental health and general grooming plates start to wobble so I rush over there and give them a spin and then Ed comes out and adds a few new plates --- the insurance adjuster, contractor, utility rate hike plates and don’t forget the hurricane season plate --- and I mean all this is pretty stressful to say the least. On the one hand, I hear the distant voice of my mother (may she rest in peace) saying “Just because we’ve all been through hell doesn’t mean it’s necessary to LOOK like we have!” And on the other I feel like I have a choice between “Full tilt” and “Fuck it!” and I’m still riding the fence on that one.

I like Spike!

I watched When the Levees Broke. A requiem in 4 acts. last night on HBO. Well I watched Parts 1 and 2 last night. The second half is on tonight. Just a few comments (I won't call them "criticisms" because like a toddler throwing a tantrum I feel that ANY attention paid by the rest of the world to this hellish on-going situation is good attention): Nevermind the footage showing that Bush knew a few days before the storm. We all knew years before the storm! EVERYONE knew! The City of New Orleans KNEW. The White House KNEW. FEMA KNEW. The first I personally heard of what would happen to this city if it endured a direct hit was in 2000 when a FEMA representative briefed the producers at the local website where I worked at the start of that hurricane season. Remember when the Superdome was opened up as a shelter of last resort? During Marc Morial's term as mayor? I think it was for Hurricane Georges. And the evacuees were locked inside? Did anyone have adequate water, food, cots, medicine and basic human needs then? No. They did not. Not for a week in the Superdome. Fortunately, the stay in the Superdome at that time was only about 48 hours. We dodged the bullet on that one, but it really should have been a lesson to this city.

Also, the Mayor of this city should have been on the ground talking to the survivors. Not holed up in some hotel room or showering on Air Force One. And don't even get me started on Bush and his cronies. Don't tell me that we are going to prosecute medical personnel who were saving lives under unimaginable conditions and that the Army Corps of Engineers and the Levee Board will not be held accountable for the loss of more than 1,000 lives.

One part of last night's showing made me feel really squirmy. The guy standing in front of the Riverboat House in Holy Cross talking about how many guns he has. I think that was meant to convey to people who don't live here that all the white people in this city have guns to protect themselves from the black people. And that just isn't true. Many of the people in this city (of all races) have guns to protect themselves from CRIMINALS. And let's face it, New Orleans wasn't Mayberry before the storm.

I know. I know. I used to be one of the folks sitting in my living room in Los Angeles thinking that guns are just BAD. And that is as far as my thought process went. Until I moved back here and realized that the bad guys all have guns. My little pepper spray wasn't going to do much good in an altercation with some whacked out crack addict stopping off at that all night teller machine (me) for some cash to buy a rock.

I’m probably suffering from Post Traumatic Stress. My right eye has been twitching for weeks now. I am crying several times a day. And I admit I could not have done a better job than Mayor Nagin. But I didn't sign up to be mayor. I didn't sign up for that responsibility. He did. As the Superchicken theme says, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it." Come to think of it, the whole city would have been better off if Superchicken had been elected mayor instead.

As a documentary film maker Spike Lee did his job. It is painful to watch. Draw your own conclusions. The only mystery to me is how C. Ray Nagin got re-elected. Never mind. George Bush got re-elected too.

Your Choice

Funny how when you aren't in a state of constant anxiety some things become crystal clear. The phone rang at my sister's house in northern California and since no-one was home, I answered it. It was Ted's mama, Lolly. Ted is my sister's boyfriend. Lolly is a therapist in Chicago and we last saw her during our evacuation from Katrina. She asked how things are going for us back in New Orleans. "It pretty much sucks right now" was my response. Lolly didn't even skip a beat. "Your choice," she said. Oddly enough, I didn't even bristle at that. I had a moment of clarity right there. It is my choice! And I have other choices too. I've been pondering them every since.

1. Swap homes for a year with a friend who wants to try living in New Orleans.

2. Move to New York for a year and stay with Jessie and Gabby. Jessie wants to get a larger apartment anyway and I know I have a job up there already.
3. Buy a house in Hammond, La. or somewhere just outside the twighlight zone of New Orleans and stay there on weekends.
4. Stay here and try to keep it together.

It's not that I want to write off my beloved New Orleans (well, truthfully sometimes I do just want to chuck it all in -- like after Ray Nay got re-elected). Most of the time though I have to believe that New Orleans will come back better than ever despite the bullshit politics, the racisim (on all sides), the crime; just the general jive around here. At least once a day Barry and I look at each other and say, "We are so fucked." And then we soldier on. But how long can we do that?

I have to remember that August and September are the two worst months in this city. Six more weeks and October will be here and one morning we'll wake up to a tiny touch of coolness in the air --- just a hint of it. Only then will I start to let down my guard. And maybe that is the answer. I should just bail the day after Jazz Fest and not come back til Halloween. In that light, it looks like Hammond would be a good alternative. I could still work in the city during the summer, but it would by my choice whether to sleep (and let my guard down) in the city.

Eureka!

This is Gabby. It isn't even a current picture, but it sums up how I feel right now so what the hell. Our vacation is over. It was perfect for me. Barry came down with a nasty case of poison oak acquired during his week in Mendocino with Smooth Bubba and Jason prior to my arrival, but aside from that, it was heaven. October like temperatures (by New Orleans standards anyway). Every night I slept like an innocent child (and I am neither).

We spent a few days in the city with Rebecca and Ivan and I walked til I thought my legs would turn to water. But for the most part my trip was spent relaxing in Marin. Had lunch with an old friend from my advertising agency days who now owns a shop in downtown San Anselmo. Weird walking into those shops and hearing people talking about flooding and FEMA. I guess I thought that was the excluive fodder of Gulf Coast residents, but downtown San Anselmo flooded on New Year's Eve. Funny. It's all perfectly repaird and pristine! I guess you don't fuck with the prosperous like you can with the poor. The little shop with the $75 dollar tank tops is up and running without a trace of the 3 feet of mud it held 8 months ago. Maybe if we had Ahnuld as the governor. No. Nevermind. I'd rather tread water in New Orleans. Truly, though, I don't know how long I can hang in on the home turf.

The trip home sucked kind of hard. A 3-stop flight out of Oakland. The first leg (to Burbank) was uneventful until we hit a flock of birds causing the cabin of the aircraft to smell like charred feathers. The repair crew from Southwest was dispatched but ultimately we had to change aircraft (after a 3 hour delay) and then headed without further incident to Phoenix, Nashville and finally New Orleans. Deplaning felt like walking fully clothed into the sauna at New Orleans Athletic Club.

And did I happen to mention that my boss hired a fork-lift to transfer a u-haul sized pile of binders, folders, maps, scribbled notes and Cherios that were in her office into my humble little cubicle??? I think that's kind of passive-aggressive personally, but I'm plowing through the mountains of paper anyway.

At any rate. We are home. I need a major distraction and I'm trying not to shop.