danielle.

I remember her middle name (Renee).

Her birthday (May 3).

She could do cartwheels and round-offs (I could not.).

She was BOY CRAZY at four years old, maybe earlier.

I remember distinctly that she walked across the street to our house, and into our carport and introduced herself. This is how we met. I think a washing machine or some other large appliance was being delivered.

She was not the kind of kid to get grossed out by bugs or other dirty, grimy things.

She pulled my hair or hit when we got into arguments.

She did not like to help me clean up after we made messes at my house - cause of many fights.

She played a trick on me once with another girl from the neighborhood, and it nearly caused me to poke my eye out. Literally. Or at least, it nearly poked my eye into blindness. (She and the other girl lured me to a spiky plant, told me they had a secret to tell me, and shoved me into the bush.)

We were in the same kindergarten class.

When I moved away to Delaware at the end of first grade, she was very sad.

When I moved back to Baton Rouge at the end of fourth grade, she was very happy.

She watched General Hospital - I watched Guiding Light.

She took after her godmother (Nanny), and she also loved Nanny very much.

I understood that a Nanny was a very special aunt who paid attention to one niece more than her others. I wanted my own Nanny.

It took her a long time to stop peeing in bed.

She struggled with school, but not with athletics.

Once, we checked cookbooks out from the library, and we each cooked the exact same meal for our families. The dinners included non-alcoholic sangria and homemade fortune cookies.

I do not remember if ambulances showed up at her house because her parents fought, or because her mom's leg caused her problems. I think it was both.

Her mother made me feel welcome in their home. Always.

Every year they bought a Christmas tree, and one year they got it flocked. I was envious because we had a tiny synthetic tree.

Her mom was originally from Chicago. This seemed exciting to me.

Once, her mom took us to a water park called Thunderbird Beach, and we got a flat tire on the way. A man in a truck stopped to help us change the tire.

Once, I went to a dentist appointment with Danielle.

Her dad said my name funny. He had a semi-Cajun accent.

He named his plumbing company D & L Plumbing, after Danielle and her half sister.

I don't know if Danielle's half sister had a relationship with her biological dad, but she did have his last name.

Once, Danielle and I put on her mom's high heels and bras, and we stuffed the bras. Maybe we did that several times.

When we slept over at each other's houses, we took baths together.

Baths at her house were more fun because her tub had a jet in it.

She was more of a tomboy than I was, in spite of her boy craziness.

Her parents were not happy when a group of black kids began getting bussed to our little mostly-white school. A lot of parents were not happy.

When we were playing in the neighborhood, and her parents whistled - that loud, two-finger-against-your-teeth-sporting-event kind of whistle, it was time for her to get home. Immediately.

She loved Indian food. At least the only Indian food she'd had - my mom's cooking. More than anything, she loved roti's, whole wheat flat bread, hot and buttered.

childhood bystander.

Miss Kathy is dead in my dream. I am talking to Danielle. Sunny blonde Danielle, girl across the street with the round cheeks, ringlet curls, eyes blue and daring, a bear laugh that is fast to erupt, just like her temper. My first childhood friend, first best friend I ever had. Fair blonde girl and dark brunette, playing together. Three, four, five years old, on until we stopped. Just like that. Sometime in 6th or 7th grade.

We are grown now. In her house, talking, and I am staring out of the sliding glass doors at the swimming pool that I swam in so long before. It is a surreal moment. To be face-to-face with this friend, whose life turned so different than my own in spite of the ranch style homes that also stand face-to-face in the same 1970s subdivision.

Danielle is telling me her mother is dead. And all I can remember is how beautiful she was to me with her copper hair worn curled by large hot rollers. Listened to country music in the long white car, maybe a Lincoln Town Car. Maybe it was midnight blue. Smoked cigarettes while she drove, and used the little metal ashtray that pulled out of the dashboard. I think Marlboro’s.

I am talking to Danielle. Or she is talking to me. About how she took care of Miss Kathy all these past years. About her older half-sister who is divorced now. It makes me want to cry. To feel so distant from this girl and her life, and yet so privileged to it, a bystander. The swimming pool is out there like a big rectangle cube of sunken Jell-O. How many times did I dive in? Slide down the slide? Do headstands in the water, same blue as Danielle’s eyes?

Laura-the-sister grown and not here. No posters of Rick Springfield above her headboard. Danielle’s dad, Pete-the-plumber, is wherever he went to live after the divorce that happened around the time we weren’t friends anymore. Her mother dead. Tina, the big fat black cat who terrified me, dead too. Dead for years and years, died when I was still a kid living across the street. And all the other cats that lived here. Dead.

Danielle, herself divorced. Danielle-who-struggled-to-spell-right-in-kindergarten, and then Danielle-who-struggled-to-finish-college-and-never-did, the would-be-sports medicine-therapist, her-dead-mother’s-caretaker. Alone now, same exact age as I am.

I remember vaguely when her parents fought, shouts echoed throughout the neighborhood, or at least down our street. Maybe just across to my house. Then sirens and light, police cars and ambulances arriving. How many times did it happen? Once? A hundred? I never asked her about these nights.

It felt like I lived at her house and she lived at my house. Connect Four. Visits to her Nanny's house. Crawfish on her kitchen table. Arguments in my backyard, when she pulled my hair, and I pulled hers. Her peeing in my bed when she slept over. Knocking on our door during dinner time, an hour after dinner time at her house, so she could eat a second meal with us.

I want to know if Miss Kathy’s manicure room is still beside the kitchen, if it still smells like polish and chemicals. If her at-home business went on for years, or if she quit it when her legs quit. But I am quiet.

This is only a dream. I don’t know if it’s true. If the degenerative disease that took her legs and put her in a wheelchair has finally taken her. I think it was a disease. If I could, I would unwind time so her legs never went either.

Miss Kathy tried to get me to dance at a wedding reception once. Shy me. Don’t you know how to do a line dance? Want me to show you? Clarence Carter, Strokin’ is what plays in my head. Back when her legs were not rotten, she was a good dancer. I watched her that day. Sometime in the 1980s. Smile across her face, trying to tempt me to dance.

I used to peek out of our window, stare at the parked car when Laura’s boyfriend pulled up to drop her off after a date. They stayed in the car for what seemed hours. I couldn’t see much, but I imagined. Light of a street lamp casting orange haze around the car. Laura making out with her high school sweetheart, Frankie. The one she married after college. Big Catholic wedding.

I hope the dream is a only a dream. That they are not divorced. That Miss Kathy is alive, her face is still beautiful, her hair is still red with soft plump curls. Danielle is happy and not alone.

disney mall.

1. The San Marcos Outlet Mall, second largest in the country, is Disney World for shoppers.

2. Shuttle busses will take you from one area to the next, if you so desire.

3. Buildings are shaped like castles (Neiman’s and Saks being the grandest, of course, and the others being like all the other functional parts of a castle-whatever those are. I only know the dungeon and tower.)

4. You can only imagine that you will emerge from Off Saks Fifth Avenue like Cinderella or the Yellow Rose of Texas.

5. Instead of emerging looking haggard and exhausted and totally overwhelmed.

6. Some of the stores are utterly disappointing. J. Crew to be exact. I was like, What is this? Are they playing Store the way kindergarteners play House?

7. What ride at Disney would this J. Crew Outlet be?

8. Some of the stores are definitely like going to Space Mountain.

9. Calvin Klein, to be exact.

10. A pair of Calvin Klein jeans fit me so fantastically, that after I purchased them, all day in my head I was Brooke Shields saying to myself: You wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.

11. I guess that is a bit like emerging as Cinderella. A cheap Cinderella. A two-bit cheap outlet Cinderella. I'll take it.

12. Which makes the Calvin Klein outlet more like Cinderella’s Palace than Space Mountain.

SONG: Girls on Film, Duran Duran

quite well.

Biggest surprise I’ve felt recently is joy for my dad. His wife arrived in the US on December 10th. Me quietly dreading her arrival. But to my surprise, when I knew she’d landed, knew he’d met her at JFK and flown beside her from New York home to North Carolina, I felt nothing but relief.

I feel happy for my dad now. Happy he will not be all alone in his great big house, happy that this new woman, my stepmother, gives him a job to do - something he’s become quite good at over the years – helping newcomers acclimate, at least in matters of business and legitimacy. (She’s been to the DMV to get an ID. She’s registered for and begun ESL classes.)

In matters of home and heart, I’m not sure how helpful dad will be in helping her acclimate. He’s probably already driven her crazy for all I know. Wouldn’t take much. He’s likely let her know how he would cook the daal, or how much salt he would use for the chicken curry. Bet he runs around behind her and scrubs bleach on the countertops as she tries to learn the kitchen and get through fixing a meal.

As happy as I feel for my dad, I am anxious for my new stepmother. Leaving an entire life behind. Brothers. Parents. Friends. A country. An entire country, like she is turning the page in a book. I worry about the way my dad can drive a person nuts. But I remember that he is funny and gregarious. I imagine that the red has returned to his cheeks. Round poofs of laughter and joy.

I spoke with her on the phone this weekend. Awkward choppy funny 3-way conversation.

How are you?
I’m good. How are you?
Breakfast?
How are you? Are you well?
No.
Not no. How-are-you, she’s asking. Answer is not no. Say: quite-well; I-am-quite-well.
I am quite well.

SONG: That Teenage Feeling, Neko Case

a little more at home.

It’s a brand new year. I’ve only recently processed this fact, and I’ve begun to act accordingly. I know, I’m just a little behind. Always.

For a long time, I’ve let myself know that I live in Austin, but I haven’t let myself believe that Austin is home. I haven’t embraced this city as my home. No wonder, since I am commuting 25 miles south to go to school, and most of the people whom I’ve met live in San Marcos, not Austin. There is an overwhelming sense of impermanence inside of me about Austin, and it makes me uneasy, unsettled. The sense of impermanence makes me feel like I’m drifting here – floating just above the surface, but unable to touch down.

I feel this way for many reasons. C is working, but he’s not working a full time job. I think we both thought we’d move here, and he’d land something great right away. I am in school, and this makes me aware that I have a looming deadline – in three years the program ends. Between my new status as a student and c.’s new status as a part-time employee, things feel, well – not permanent. Likewise, we are renting a house for the first time in 7 years, so I have had little sense of ownership. The yard is ugly? Not my problem. That’s what I mean. Also, no matter what I do – paint the walls, open the blinds, raise them, it always feels so dark in this house, and the dark feels…not like me.

Nothing is supposed to be perfect, and generally, nothing seems to happen the way we picture it will happen. So it’s time to feel grateful for what is and to let myself become rooted in the ways I can. It's high time. I’ve got to live here as if Austin is home. My home, and not a foreign city I’m taking in as a tourist.

Joining the local YMCA has given me the sense that I am part of a larger community, minor an act as it is. I started taking a yoga class, and today I began training for my next triathlon, a sprint distance all-women’s event that takes place in May. These things make me feel that I have a routine and some obligation inside of the city. MWF I go to yoga and my triathlon class. It feels good to get out in the world and be around other people on a regular basis.

I finally searched around for a place to get my hair cut. I had a haircut in October, but it didn’t feel like the right place or person. I’ve also had my hair colored twice by two different people, but that also has not felt just right. I need a hairdresser whose personality, sense of style, and skills I admire, and I need a salon that I feel comfortable visiting. Because, once I find a place and a person, I am remarkably loyal. This has been one of my top three moving-related anxieties. I really loved the woman in BR who cut my hair. She did a fantastic job. But she was all booked up when I went home for Christmas. I realized I better find someone here who I can depend upon. Earlier this week I got online and searched out reviews, and I’m hopeful that the woman I’m seeing tomorrow will do a great job – people have written tons of great stuff about her. It may seem psychotic, but today I did a drive-by of the salon. It looked like a cute place.

I’ve even decided to head to Book People and purchase an Austin Fodor’s guide and some kind of "Insider's Guide to Austin" type of book. I am tired of not knowing where to go out to eat beyond the few places right by my house. And I want to know where I should pack up to head off to on a long weekend.

Cooking dinner in my own house is an act that makes me feel as if I live here, as if I am at home and not on vacation. When we returned from BR, one of the first things we did was head to the grocery store and stock up. We’ve been really great about cooking dinner at home these past two weeks, and that has helped me feel more grounded about where "home" is.

The last thing I’ve done – it may seem insignificant – but I went out and bought a whole bunch of new clothes yesterday. I’ve been awfully attached to some of the clothing I brought with me from BR. But I have to face it. A lot doesn’t fit anymore. You can't stay trim and fit if you don’t actually exercise. I purged my dresser and closet. I bought some jeans and pants that fit. And I’m feeling alright about it. A little more at home.

a peaceful day.

Last night I had grand visions of waking, eating a light breakfast, reading a bit, and then going to walk on the elliptical machine before doing a yoga class. I set my alarm for 7:20 am, but I didn’t wake up until 10 am. Figures. I was tempted to keep sleeping. But, “No! No!” some voice inside of me. I got up. Dressed. Fed the dogs. Brushed my teeth and washed my face, and I made it to the yoga class at the YMCA. Gentle Yoga. Last night, after reading the descriptions of the zillion yoga classes offered at my new Y, I felt like this might be the one for me.

I was probably the youngest person in the class. But the instructor, a smallish Indian man, about 55 years old, taught with such a soothing and grounded quality, that I just fell in, no angst or discomfort. He kept reminding us, “Focus less on your body movements and more on your breathing.” During the full body relaxation at the end, I wiggled my toes: Relax little toes. Rotated my ankles: Relax ankles. And on and on until my favorite part comes when you relax your back, let if sink into the floor like it is part of the earth. At least, that is what I visualize, that my whole body is connected to a plane of moist soil. Laying there, eyes closed, I could see green and yellow splotches of light turning beneath my eyelids.

It was the closest simulation I've experienced of my days with Miriam Srinivasan – a tiny, fit and energetic 60-something German woman who taught yoga at my high school. She is no longer living, which surprises me, because I always thought she'd live well into her 90s, if not beyond. “Oh, Erpret,” she had declared at the end of my second year taking yoga with her, “you are not very limber.” And so it still is. My body is not a limber body.

I still plan to train for a triathlon, and I don't want to forget my running skills. But I’ve got it in my head that this year, if I focus primarily on yoga and swimming, I can loosen my muscles and become not only more fit, but also more flexible, less stressed out, more energized and more productive. We shall see.

When I left the Y (which I am madly in love with – it is a billion times nicer than my YMCA in BR), I walked outside and the beauty of the day struck me. Crisp. Peaceful. I turned off the radio. Drove in silence. I didn’t check my cell phone for calls or my email for mail. At home, I greeted my dogs. Let them out into the backyard. Opened some mail. Showered. Fixed something to eat.

While I ate, I caught up on my blog reading – which is a funny thing, because not too long ago I didn’t read a single blog. I poured a cup of coffee, and I kept reading. It is a perfect day. Perfectly quiet. Perfectly blue sky outside. My mind perfectly still.

Later, I’ll read the novel I’m hoping to finish tonight, and I’ll work on short story revisions. This is the day I’ve been waiting to give myself since I returned from vacation. I’m not mad at myself for sleeping later than I’d planned to, but I’m going to work on rising earlier tomorrow. I hope to spend the whole week storing up energy and returning to a schedule, a routine - I don't feel that I really had a routine last semester, and I don't function well without one.

I hope I won’t see a single soul except my husband and dogs for these last days before I head into the new semester.

more babies.

I woke up with a jolt, saying this to myself: I thought my life would be more exciting.
And that is what I mourn. The picture that was exciting and daring and in which I did a lot of living all by my self.

When I asked c. "Do you want kids," he answered timidly, "I think so." He turned the same question on me, and I had the same wavy-sounding response. And then we talked it through. The thing is, when I THINK about it, I never know exactly, and I end up answering from a place that holds a lot of fear and anxiety. But when I just stop thinking and close my eyes and imagine what my life LOOKS like, I see a kid.

So I've got to go with that picture, because that is what FEELS right and good. And seeing that picture makes me pretty happy. Thinking about it makes me scared and anxious, but seeing it - happy.

babies.

Pros and Cons.

When I see ugly babies, I think: “That is a really ugly baby.” Often, I look at c. and say these words aloud. Karma will give me ugly babies.

I am not sure if I am thinking about babies lately because I actually WANT children, or if it is because I recognize that my body is not timeless and without limitations.

It feels more like I am scared that when I am 50, I will be sad I didn’t have children, and it feels less like: Oh my god, if I do not become a mother soon, I will be deeply unhappy.

I always thought I would adopt. Somehow this always feels more natural to who I am than the thought of having a child grow inside of me. But I am not nearly as financially secure as I also thought I would be, and adoption costs money.

Nothing in my life is exactly like I thought it would be, but there are some close approximations. This knowledge makes me hopeful.

I hate the idea of a little being taking form inside of my body, needing my body, depending on my habits and health and well-being. Some women get tears just thinking about this as some beautiful cycle of life. I am not those women.

I am going to be 34 in a few days, and there are still many things that I would like to accomplish before children enter my picture.

One thing I want to do is travel overseas for an extended period of time. In my ideal world I would have a good 2 or 3 months in a few different places.

In my even more ideal world I would be less of a resort traveler and more of a hunker down and find out what a place is really like. Some people have no curiosity about things such as place - in the larger sense, but my curiosity has been alive in me for a long time.

Another thing I want to do is publish some piece of fiction. I know I am working toward this, but it will be a slow climb. This feels like it is a good two years in the making.

In my even more ideal world I will have an agent before I have a child. This feels like it is a good three years in the making.

I would also be out of school and have a business of my own – writing for businesses/companies/organizations on a contractual basis. In this business, I will have a set of steady clients, and I will be paid a phenomenal hourly rate. This feels like it is four years away. I can envision starting up after school, but I imagine it will take four years for it to become stable income.

These writing goals feel attainable even if I have a child. But it feels like I’ll have a slower climb.

My whole entire life, I have been a tortoise. Slow and steady wins the race, right? I find myself wondering. I am not even sure what the race is. I guess it is the picture in my head – the things I see for myself, the kind of life I see myself living.

I don’t think I was ever supposed to figure anything out quickly or accomplish anything with great speed.

No matter how slow my life moves, I am one of those people who is too stubborn to quit a thing once my mind is set, and I don’t think a child would change this in me, but maybe could make it a more pronounced characteristic.

Traveling far away for long periods feels less attainable with children in the picture.

Traveling quite possibly hinders my husband’s career ambitions.

Writers often travel away on fellowships. And for summer writing retreats. Retreats cost money.

It has taken me so long – not to know what I want – but simply to have the self-confidence and faith that what I want is not as impractical and unrealistic as it sounds to the world, and from this understanding, to move forward trying to do what I want to do, and feel the need, in my bones, to do.

If I have children, and life takes other turns, I fear that I will resent my own kids. I could even feel angry with them, and more so, angry with myself.

I do not like the way it feels to be angry with anyone.

My friends who have children say children change your life. It is always a vague statement: “I know people say life changes after you have kids, but it really does. In ways that are hard to describe, and harder to imagine.”

What the fuck does that mean? Will someone please tell me?

I don’t only notice ugly babies. I notice ugly toddlers and children. Karma will send me ugly toddlers and ugly children.

Nothing has convinced me that I want my life to change in ways that I cannot imagine. I'm fairly content imagining things for myself, thank you very much.

I am pretty sure I would be a good parent.

But being a good parent, to my mind, means being responsible to my children in ways that require me to curb my own ambitions.

I don’t feel ready to curb my ambitions, but time is not on my side.

Is the fear that I will regret not having children when I am 50 a good reason to have a baby?

My mom really, really wanted me to have babies. Plural.

I never can tell if I really, really want babies, plural, let alone, singular.

But I also can’t tell if I don’t want babies.

People say that you never see your own kids as anything but beautiful. But I have a pretty good aesthetic eye. I know I would notice.

I also have a healthy dose of vanity. I would notice ugly.

The things I want to accomplish do not even begin to account for the things my husband wants to accomplish.

I am pretty sure he would also make a good parent.

I am not sure that children help marriages. I suspect that children make marriage a more complicated beast. Maybe I am wrong about this.

I always envisioned that if I had children, I would be more financially secure when I had them. Clearly, as I thought I would be adopting babies, not birthing babies! And I thought this pre-Angelina Jolie. I swear.

It makes my stomach physically ache when I hear about women’s labor experiences. I cannot help but wonder why on earth I would put my body through such pain. I’ll admit it. I also don’t want my butt to sag or my feet to grow.

Sometimes I find my friends’ children and my nieces and nephews delightful and fun and awesome.

My friend told me recently that her mom said she feels like people have to mourn their own transitions and transformations. Women mourn their single selves when they marry. We mourn ourselves as child-free when we are with child, and on and on. I get that.

What we end up mourning, I guess, is the vision of what we thought we would be or do within those lives, and we also mourn what we will no longer be able to do in our new lives. For this reason, I hope people will be sympathetic if I complain my way through pregnancy and parenting the way I complain my way up to the mere idea of conceiving. Because, I promise you, my fears and sadness and reservations are as legitimate and real to me as some women's desire to have children. It won't stop me from being a good mom or loving my child, I don't think, but my sadness will be real.

There is this one last thing. C. and I talked recently, and when it came down to it, it felt right to say, yes, we will try to have kids. At least a kid. Because here is what the pretty picture of five years from now looks like in my head: C. is an architect, and maybe he is in the process of starting his own firm. I am a writer. I have an agent. I also have my consulting company. I have an office in my house dedicated to writing. I work from home. If I am lucky, my office is a little detached building in the back yard. I have a kid who is about 3 1/2.

It's not the most extraordinary picture, I know. But it is my picture. It even makes me a little sad to only see one kid, because a kid without a sibling just makes me sad. But when I see two kids in the picture, I automatically see a nanny. And in my five year picture, I can't really afford a nanny.

Maybe we'll win the lottery?

There’s a lot to figure out. First and foremost, c. needs to be gainfully employed before we give it a shot. And we can’t do much about the economy but wait it out while he continues putting his resume out there. I’d also like to be closer to finished with school, to make it through a couple more semesters.

He asked, “What if it’s a boy? What will you do then?” And I said, “Can I trade it in?” Because I’m partial to the idea of a girl-child. But then he asked, “What if we have twin red-headed boys?” And I said, “Having Ruby and Basil is sort of like having twin red-headed boys.” Some things, I suppose, we cannot figure out, but we just have to go with what feels right in the moment. I can honestly say, none of this felt right five years ago.

gluttony.

I am having trouble writing a new entry, but I am going to push on through this blog constipation. Mostly, I don’t know what to focus on – processing and trying to write about my first semester of school; the overly indulgent Bacchanalia-like eleven-day holiday in Baton Rouge from which I have just returned (and feel completely exhausted and full); two things foremost on my mind these days – fantasies of traveling and sorting through all of my fears and confusion about babies yay or nay; all the ducks I am trying to get in a row for a productive 2009; a few observations about BR that made me deeply sad in the face of all I love about this little green city, trying to get settled into Austin so it feels like home; my newest ventures in working out (conceived of, but yet to be implemented). I have no idea where to begin.

Lists are like safety nets, and food is comfort. So I’m going to make a list of some of the foods I ate over the last two weeks, and between safety and comfort, maybe I'll be jump started into blogging regularly in 2009.

Bear in mind that I was mostly sharing all these rich meals!

Dec. 21
Boudin balls, sautéed crabfingers, raw oysters, crabmeat stuffed mushrooms, oyster Florentine soup from The Chimes.

Fried chicken, biscuits and mashed potatoes from Popeye’s.

Dec. 22
Tomato basil soup, a 4-cheese grilled cheese sandwich on focaccia bread, a shrimp poboy from Chelsea’s.

Fried haloumi cheese, kibi, spinach pie from Roman’s.

Dec. 23
Steamed oysters, raw oysters and maybe a salad from the Chimes. Not sure what I ate besides oysters.

Dec. 24
Chicken and sausage gumbo (courtesy of c.’s mom), char-broiled fish, grilled boudin, grilled sausage.

Dec. 25
White beans, ham, dirty rice, brown n serve rolls (also c.’s mom).

Dec. 26
Seafood gumbo and salad and hush puppies from the Chimes.

Dec. 27
Shrimp poboy and onion rings from George’s.

Dec. 29
Salad and pizza and roasted garlic on bread from Digulio’s.

Dec. 30
Ribs and a sweet potato..from TJ Ribs...these are the kinds of places you eat at with mom's. But I have to admit, I enjoyed my ribs, since this is something I probably eat like once a year, if that.

Homemade pizza by my friend C. – including yummy homemade crust.

Dec. 31
BBQ shrimp poboy and sweet potato fries from Liuzza’s on the Track, NOLA

Seafood paella, mussels in garlic sauce, almond soup from Lola’s, NOLA

Jan. 1
Pancakes, eggs, bacon from Panola St. Café, NOLA

Cabbage, black-eyed peas, pork roast, etc. made by my friend S. who is a really wonderful cook.

Jan. 2
Tomato basil soup and spinach pochette from my fave. chain – La Madeleine’s.

More homemade pizza with homemade crust, a girl’s night combined cooking effort.

Jan. 3
Shrimp with angel hair pasta and baked fish (c.'s mom).

All kinds of south LA wedding reception food.

Jan. 4
Shrimp poboy, crabmeat pistolette, shrimp pistolette, crawfish poboy from Chicken on the Bayou in Henderson.

At some point at The Chimes there were cheese fries. The most awesome cheese fries. But I know I am getting some of my days mixed up and forgetting some of the delights I feasted on. Note that the crab fingers and stuffed mushrooms in the photo above are swimming in butter.

A lot of eating with this alarm blaring in the back of my head: THESE THINGS WILL NOT BE AT YOUR DISPOSAL IN AUSTIN. EAT EAT EAT. And yet another alarm, nagging: STOP EATING SO MUCH.

I did not run one time while in Baton Rouge, though I had the best of intentions. I did get out and walk a few times. Once downtown, and a couple of times through City Park.

This week I begin eating salads and nuts and veggies and fish NOT smothered in butter like they're going out of style.

revision.

I've been revising a short story, and I'm going to submit it to a few journals. I've never posted any of my fiction on this blog. But here goes. P. 1-3 and a section of p. 14 of an 18-page story.

From "Search and Rescue"

George’s stepmother kept like an unwilling refugee in his house in Baton Rouge. It had become controversial in the news to call them that. None-the-less, George Landry Jr. felt she was his personal refugee.

Eula Mae Landry was eighty-two. She had not left the safety of the Arabi Park Trailer Estates in ten years, not since her second husband, George Landry Sr., had passed away.

At George Jr.’s urging, Eula Mae’s live-in son Carlton drove Eula Mae up from Arabi to Baton Rouge with her two dearest essentials – a photo of herself at sixteen, full moon mouth half smiling as it exterminates candles on a sheet cake, and Beatrice, her chatty white cockatoo. In Eula Mae’s moss green Chevy Impala that lacked air conditioning and radio, Carlton and his mother waded through ten hours of rain and evacuation traffic to make the eighty-mile trip.

Eula Mae clucked her tongue against her teeth and patted her brow with a cotton handkerchief. “Lord, Carlton. Betsey’s gonna be a bad one.”

Carlton kept his gaze straight ahead. “Mama, this here’s Katrina. Hurricane Betsey was in ‘65.” The wipers thrashed with effort across the windshield.

“Oooh.” Eula Mae placed her right arm beneath her breasts and tucked them upward. She moved her hand to rest it over her heart. The white handkerchief drooped in surrender between her fingers. “Yes. That’s right.”

Traffic stood still.

“Listen to that rain, Carlton.” Water jack-hammered steadily onto the car. Eula Mae furrowed her brow and blood rose to her cheeks. “Where’s your daddy? Flyro should not be foolin around with Betsey. Better get out fore the storm hits. He’s meetin us up in Baton Rouge?” She looked around, trying to gain her senses. “Is that right?”

“Mama, this here’s Katrina. Hurricane Betsey was ’65. Daddy passed in the storm. You married George Landry Sr. in ‘77. Remember? We’re headed to his son George Jr.’s now.”

Carlton unbuttoned the second and third buttons on his work shirt. An Exxon patch was affixed to his front pocket just below a patch with his name stitched on it. He wiped sweat from his upper lip. Rain sprayed through cracked-open windows in the back, and mist condensed on the vinyl seats.

Eula Mae clucked again. “I wanna get home soon.” The woman turned to her bird. “Be-Be, Eula Mae wants to go home.”

“Cluck. Eula Mae wants to go home,” the bird mimicked. The wetter Beatrice became in her cage, the louder the bird squawked her discomfort from the back seat of the car.

That night, reasoning that his stepbrother should have a turn with her, Carlton deposited his mother for good with George, and he proceeded to Alabama to stay with an old high school buddy. George stood under the cover of his carport and smoked a cigarette while Carlton backed down the driveway. Carlton stopped the Impala and stuck his head out of the window. “She gets upset, show her that old photo. Likes to think she’s sixteen.”

“You comin back in a few days?”

“I’ll be back once the hurricane’s passed. Sure I’ll have to get back to work in the next few days.”

George, a fifty-six year old emergency search and rescue worker, had married at 20, divorced at 28, and lived alone ever since. He taught courses at the Federal Emergency Training Institute housed at the state university, and he spent evenings alone. The occasional explosions at one of the area’s oil refineries or grain elevators were the most catastrophes he’d experienced. Sometimes, a year passed without crisis. He supposed this was a good thing.

On the day after his stepmother and her cockatoo began perching in his ranch-style house in an old white-flight subdivision in Baton Rouge, Katrina hit New Orleans. Wind gusts blew through Baton Rouge, splitting oak trees and tearing shingles from roofs. His own water oaks were spared, and it seemed Katrina wasn't so severe after all.

Enjoying the calm that followed the hurricane, George and Eula Mae sat on his porch barbecuing hot dogs and listening to cassette tapes through an old battery-powered jam box while, in New Orleans, the levees broke. “Expect Carlton will be headin back soon and ya’ll can make your way home,” George told Eula Mae. Electricity was out and phone lines were down. They didn’t hear about the flooding until a day later when George received a text message saying he would be responding in the Ninth Ward. Be prepared to leave at dawn, his supervisor had written.

***
P. 14

George walked inside and returned with a whiskey and the photo. “Amit, why don’t you run on home for now.” Lines grew from the corners of George’s eyes, fanning out over his temples, tracing history like arpent lines. George’s tired blue slits met Amit’s chocolate eyes. Amit’s eyes were like the boy’s eyes, and George remembered:

“Deformed monkey goes in the luggage compartment or you leave him behind,” the officer had told George. “You have two fucking options.” New Orleans had been ominous. Hundred-year-old live oaks and Canary Island date palms splayed against the neutral grounds, diminished like anorexic bodies. Where water receded, the city had been smothered in a toxic gumbo – soot, mud, overturned cars, engine oil, sewerage, rat and dog carcasses. A thick odor hovered in the humid air; it was the unforgettable, unbearably hot smell of death. The clearest sound had been men in shrimp boots sloshing through the thick gray-brown liquid. Caved-in rooftops of sunshine-yellow shotgun homes and melon-colored Creole cottages jutted from the slush. Headlamps strapped to hard hats glared into worker’s faces – the lamps acting as silent sirens beaming into each man’s eyes. Before giving the boy up to the officer, George had hugged him. He had hugged him once and set his gloved hand over the boy’s head in prayer.

George kneeled beside his stepmother now. He pried her hands off of her face and tilted her head up to look at him. “Eula Mae. It’s gonna be all right.”

Beatrice clucked in a kind of stutter. The sound penetrated George’s ears.

George spoke over Beatrice. “Eula Mae. Look here. Everything’s gonna be alright.” George picked up the paper towel and dabbed her eyes and cheeks. “You look real pretty today, Eula.” He pressed the drink against her palm, wrapped her hard fingers into a grasp around the whiskey glass. “Go on, sip on this.”