don't mind me, I'm just watching your lips move

It's been kind of a bizarre week.

Monday and Tuesday I spent doing an ad hoc art installation on a loading dock in Jersey City. This guy I know had 'curated a show' there that was supposed to be opening this evening. He sent out a blanket 'call for volunteers' to build partitions and clean the place up for the show. After I got over being annoyed with people who think that my time is theirs for the asking, I showed up in Jersey city on Monday afternoon, to find this guy sweeping acres of filthy loading dock floor with a very small broom, and nothing else at all.

I was not terribly surprised, as this guy is of a type you get a lot of in NYC--the one who talks and talks, about all the people he knows, all his connections, his big ideas and gallery sales. I did not believe the talk. It simply occured to me that there has been an inchoate installation idea floating around in the back of my mind for several months, involving drawing on a really old, distressed wall in subtle and interesting ways. I had a feeling that the loading dock in Jersey City might be a place to try this out, and I was right.

So while the guy continued pushing his broom around and talking, I got out some charcoal and pencils, fetched a ladder, and started drawing. I drew for a few hours, then went to Staples for more supplies. The next day I returned with a boom box, extension cord, handmade paper from Chinatown, pencils, pastels, oil sticks, scissors, tacks, map pins, duct tape, mandala drawings, random things picked up off the ground, and two feathers. I spent all day playing kindergarten while blasting Arvo Pärt into the far reaches of the loading dock; I don't know what the local construction workers thought about it. The 'curator' pushed the dirt around on the floor for a few hours and finally went home.

Once I got done with my experimental mess on the wall, late Tuesday night, I lost interest in the project. The 'curator' called me several times to say how 'encouraged' he was that I was so enthusiastic; the carpenter who was supposed to be building partitions was not returning his calls, so he decided to go ahead with the opening on Saturday, just not hang any art. I ask you.

Wednesday the director of Arts Circle called and begged begged begged me to meet him at the Empire Bar between 7 and 11, where he is the house pianist. He had graphics and information for me which, for some reason, could not be sent over the Internet. I bitched and grumbled about this but showed up anyway; it was an excuse to leave my apartment. And there was, indeed, something a little glamorous about drifting into the Empire Bar at 10:15 with my laptop, perching on a barstool next to the pianist, and doing some desultory faux-antique graphic design while waiting for Grigorio to go on break. All I can say about the proposed benefit concert for displaced New Orleans musicians is that it looks good on paper; Grigorio talked with Woody Allen's manager about the possibility of getting Woody to play sax, but results are, so far, inconclusive.

Thursday the director of EAI called and begged begged begged me to come to his loft and rewrite the press release, answer phones, and attack the backlog of listings by artists who cannot follow 'upload' directions correctly. By this time I was starting to feel like a character in a Barbara Pym novel, a sort of ironic, tweedy middle-aged woman who sublimates her animal instincts by doing laundry for clergymen and typing anthropologist's theses. If it hadn't been Jerry I would have said no. I admit it--I have a crush on Jerry. Not Jerry qua Jerry, himself--what I love about him is that he is utterly open about how M.J. is the love of his life, the inspiration for everything he's doing, his reason to devote himself to emerging artists everywhere, and I have no desire to screw that up. No, Jerry is only my new template. I'd like to meet someone just like him, but available, a little bigger, and a bit less hyperactive. That doesn't mean I wasn't watching his hands moving around on the keyboard, and the way he'd take his hair down for no real reason and put it back in its ponytail, and his smile. It Has Been Awhile.

In fact, the Coney Island episode of a few weeks back definitely woke up my 2nd chakra. Unfortunately, simply getting laid isn't the issue. If it were, I could probably do a few shots of tequila, wander down to 18th and 4th avenue and have my pick of cute Latino gangsters. I'm not merely 'over' the ex, thankfully and finally. I've spent the last year really learning boundaries, which has cleared up my 3rd chakra (identity) and 4th chakra (heart). Which means, I think, that I might be capable of connecting with another person in a somewhat non-dysfunctional way. I don't know, though, because I haven't found a test subject yet.

Thursday after Jerry called my phone line went dead, possibly in order to protect me from more phone calls from desperate men. (Boundaries?) I fell into a state of panic and despair when the lady from MCI said that a repair visit would cost me $180, and thought briefly of cashing in all my available credit and departing permanently for South America.

But then on Friday I got a different lady at MCI, who apologized for the trouble I was having and promised to deal with it immediately; she also helped me access my voicemail, which contained messages from desperate paying clients. I earned $160 in cash and a lot of gratitude. Also, Lara called me from California to say she'd won the screenwriting competition. This caused me to hoot myself hoarse; I am genuinely, profoundly thrilled at my friends' successes. Hoo-wheee.

Then on Saturday were all the art openings. I thought I was working at BWAC, but upon arrival discovered that no, I'd signed up for Sunday. So I hung out by the bar for two or three hours, consuming random bad things and soaking up community vibes. A semi-retarded individual sat down next to me and talked soothingly of many nothings (you know the Long Island Railroad? I saw the train tracks, on Myrtle Avenue, I saw them! My friend, has a dog, the dog won't stay with anyone, he likes me, licks me, jumps up and down, but won't stay) and I did not mind at all, just smiled and nodded and dozed.

In front of my apartment I met my next-door neighbor, an upstanding young man who has been in the Air Force, surfs, rides horses, and scuba dives for shipwrecks. He has adopted the alley cats and named them Reef and Giala. After we'd been discussing the cats for some time, along came the prophet Jeremiah, in the form of a drunken Samoan from down the block. Jeremiah did a great deal of portentious mumbling, much of which I couldn't catch, but the gist of which seemed to be that my next-door neighbor and I should get married. Not immediately, but someday. I thanked him, and urged him to go home and drink a glass of water (compulsive maternality dies hard). "I love Brooklyn," said my neighbor, as Jeremiah wandered away.

Then I set off for Jersey City after all. I did not make it. Traffic was horrible, the Holland Tunnel costs $6, and after sitting on Canal St. for an hour I decided that the odds of reaching the loading dock at long last to find an embarrassingly pathetic scene were too high. I turned around and went to Lowe's instead, where I bought latex gloves, turpentine, chrysanthemums and a toaster. Mmmmm, kinky.

Late, after Prairie Home Companion, I went to the MadArts opening down the block, where I found the inevitable Steve the Poet. I have come to accept Steve as my brother--bad poetry, bad teeth and all--and we had a pleasant chat. He kept backing me around the room, but again I hardly minded. Boundaries are all about knowing you CAN walk away at any moment; then you choose to stay.

Meanwhile, a genuine heroine

I can't express how much I admire Badger for GOING TO HOUSTON AND DOING SOMETHING. I have been on a partial news-fast and a total blog-fast for the last few weeks, so I didn't realize what she was doing until today. Librarian to the rescue! Her courage, love and humanity transcends, well, everything.

Dueling ideologies in my inbox

A friend of my mother's emailed me this article, under the mistaken notion that Mom would be reading my email while she was visiting. I started to write a response, but was prevented from completing it by the uncontrollable surge of anger rising up in my gut. My mom's friend is a lovely person, a devoted pediatrician from Baton Rouge, well over seventy years of age, and has always been very kind to me. It would be rude and disrespectful of the elderly to unleash my sarcastic tongue just now.

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

An Objectivist Review

by Robert Tracinski | The Intellectual Activist


September 2, 2005




It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

"'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.


Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005


Copyright© 2002 The Intellectual Activist

Then, someone else sent me this one:

Eyewitness Report from New Orleans


September 6, 2005

On Saturday September 3, award-winning filmmaker Gloria La Riva, internationally-acclaimed photographer Bill Hackwell and A.N.S.W.E.R. Youth & Student Coordinator Caneisha Mills, a senior at Howard University, arrived in New Orleans.

The following is an eyewitness report of the crisis in the area written on Sunday, September 4.

Algiers

While 80 percent of New Orleans was submerged in water, Algiers is one of the few districts that have been spared the worst of the flooding as it sits higher than most of the city. An historic district established in 1719, Algiers is on the west bank of the Mississippi river, across from the French Quarter. Probably 15% of the residents still remain behind, most of them determined to stay in their homes. The majority of homes are still intact, although many have suffered damage. While their houses survived, the peoples’ chance of survival seemed very bleak since there was no electricity or disbursement of food, water or other supplies.

We arrived in the Algiers district of New Orleans after getting through seven checkpoints. We quickly learned that the current media reports that relief and aid have finally arrived to New Orleans are as false as all earlier reports that also had as their origin government sources. The people in the Algiers area have received nothing or next to nothing since the Hurricane struck. Left without any way to escape, people are now struggling to survive in the aftermath. Now they are being told they have to abandon their homes, even though they want to stay. They are not being given what they need to stay and survive, and are being told they must leave.

“Imagine being in a city, poor, without any money and all of a sudden you are told to leave and you don’t even have a bicycle,” stated Malik Rahim, a community activist in the Algiers section of New Orleans. “90% of the people don’t even have cars.”

One woman told us it was not possible for her to evacuate. She said, “I can’t leave. I don’t have a car and I have nine children.” She and her husband are getting by with the help of several men in the community who are joining resources to provide for their neighbors.

The government claims that people can get water, but residents have to travel at least 17 miles to the nearest water and ice distribution center. Only one case of water is available per family. Countless people have no way to drive.

While the government is touting the deployment of personnel to the area, there is a huge military and police presence but none of it to provide services. All of them, north and south of the river, are stationed in front of private buildings and abandoned stores, protecting private property.

The goods that the government personnel are bringing in are for their own forces. They are not distributing provisions to people who desperately need them.

Not one of them has delivered water to Algiers or gone to the houses to see if sick or elderly people need help. There is no door-to-door survey to see who was injured.

The overwhelming majority of people who have stayed in Algiers are Black but some are white. One man in his late 50s in Algiers pointed across the street to a 10-acre grassy lot. It looks like a beautiful park. He said, “I had my daughter call FEMA. I told them I want to donate this land to the people in need. They could set up 100 tractor trailers with aid, they could set up tents. No one has ever called me back.” He is clearly angry.

Although some of the residents do express fear of burglaries into houses, acts of heroism, sacrifice and solidarity are evident everywhere.
Steve, a white man in his 40s, knocks on Malik’s front door. He tells us, “Malik has kept this neighborhood together. We don’t know what we’d do without his help.” He has come in because he needs to use the phone. Malik’s street is the only one with phones still working.

Malik and three of his friends have been delivering food, water and ice to those in need three times a day, searching everywhere for goods.

There is a strong suspicion among the residents that the government has another agenda in the deliberately forced removal of people from Algiers, even though this particular neighborhood is not under water and is intact. Algiers is full of quaint, historic French-style houses, with a high real estate value, and the residents know that the government and real estate forces would like to lay their hands on their neighborhood to push forward gentrification which is already evident.

Downtown New Orleans

Although entry is prohibited into downtown New Orleans north and east of the Mississippi, we were able to get in on Sunday.

The Superdome is still surrounded by water and all types of military helicopters, army trucks, etc are coming in and out of the area; however, most of the people who survived have already left. On US-90, the only road out of New Orleans, convoys of National Guard troops are pouring into the city, too late for many. According to an emergency issue of The Times-Picayune, 16,000 National Guard troops now occupy the city.


Thousands of troops are in New Orleans but water is premium and still not available. One African American couple we met looking for water told us, “We have four kids. When they told us to leave before the hurricane we couldn’t. We have no car and no money.”

Undoubtedly it is similar in the other states that got the direct hit of Katrina, Mississippi and Alabama. On the radio we hear reports of completely demolished towns. What differentiates the rest of the Gulf coast from New Orleans is that the many thousands of deaths in New Orleans were absolutely preventable and occurred after the hurricane. On everyone’s lips is the cutting in federal funds to strengthen the levees of Lake Pontchartrain. Two reporters from New York tell us they just came from the New Orleans airport emergency hospital that was set up. We made our way to the airport.

New Orleans International Airport

The New Orleans International Airport was converted into an emergency hospital center. Thousands of people were evacuated there to get supplies and food, and for transportation that would take them out of the city. Many people arrived with only one or two bags, their entire lives reduced to a few belongings.

Some people did not want to leave their homes, but say they were forced to do so. For example, one white woman and her husband were forced to evacuate. She said, “The military told us that we had one minute to evacuate. We said that we weren’t ready and he said they can’t force us to leave but if we don’t leave anybody left would be arrested … but it was the end of the month. The two of us have been living for a couple of months on $600 a month and rent is $550. At the end of the month, we only had $20 and 1/8 of a tank of gas. There was no way we could leave.”

When it became apparent that nobody was coming back to pick them up, the couple walked five miles to the airport to see if they could get help.

Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, doctors, nurses and community organizations came from as far as San Diego, California and Kentucky to provide support during the crisis. None of them were dispersed into the community. When we arrived at the airport on Sunday, September 4, there were approximately 20 medical people for every one patient while people in regions such as Algiers and the 9th ward were left to fend for themselves.

The majority of people in New Orleans blame the local and national government for the catastrophe. One young Black man said, “The government abandoned us … [it’s] pre-meditated murder.” Another said, “Why would you [the government] protect a building … instead of rescuing people that have been without food or water for three or four days? It seems like that was the plan. … We couldn’t starve them out, the hurricane didn’t kill them, it seems planned.”

Baton Rouge

As we drive to Baton Rouge tonight to visit evacuated people, we hear on local radio that possibly 10,000 people have died in the flooded areas of New Orleans. Tonight in one announcement, we hear the names of some of the missing people still being searched for, a 90-year-old woman named Lisa, a man 102 years old, two women 82 and 85 years old. The elderly, the most vulnerable, left to their own devices.

Bodies are lying everywhere, and hidden in attics and apartments. The announcer describes how one body, rotting after days in the sun, was surrounded by a wall fashioned from fallen bricks by survivors, and given a provisional burial to give her some dignity. Written on the sheet covering her is, “Here lies Vera, God Help Us.”

At a Red Cross shelter outside of Baton Rouge, we meet Emmanuel, who can’t find his wife and three sons after the floods. His story is shocking but not unusual. His home is near the 17th Street Canal, where the Pontchartrain levee broke through.
“I stayed behind to rescue my neighbors while I sent my wife and kids to dry land,” he says. It is difficult for him to relate what happened. He had a small boat so he went from house to house picking up neighbors. While doing so, he encountered many bodies in the water.
“My best friend’s body was floating by in the water. One mother whose baby drowned tied her baby to a fence so she could bury him after she returned.” Because troops kept driving by him and others without helping them, he had to walk 30 miles north until he was picked up.

The people of New Orleans did not have to die; their lives did not have to be destroyed. This conduct of the government is a crime of the highest magnitude. There is not a single adjective that is adequate.

Negligence, incompetence, callous disregard while all are true, none are sufficient. Those who manage a system that always and everywhere puts the needs of business and private property ahead of the people, that always find money to fund wars that benefit the rich of this country rather than meeting people’s needs should be held responsible and accountable. The real problem however, is not with the managers of the system, but with the system itself. They call it the free market. It is the economic and social system of plutocracy, the system of modern capitalism, of, by, and for the rich that in words declares itself to be of, by and for the people. The reality, however, can now been seen in the streets of New Orleans.


A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-533-0417
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545

Birthday

When autumn comes
It doesn't ask
It just walks in where it left you last
You never know when it starts
Until there's fog inside the glass around
Your summer heart

--John Mayer, "Something's Missing"

People keep asking, 'how has your summer been?" I know they're just making conversation, but I find it confusing. It's not like I did any thing differently "for the summer." Except turn into another person--there was that. Just in time, too. The old one was simply not a sustainable proposition.

Last year for my birthday I went to Canada. For a pile of bleeding nerve endings I was outwardly functioning fairly well--I made the 12-hour drive up to Toronto without mishap, was a neat and considerate houseguest, delivered up cut-rate massage therapy on cue, cooked and washed dishes. On my birthday I wanted to see 'Vanity Fair.' It had just come out, starring Reese Witherspoon, and I had been looking forward to it for months.

When it was time to leave for the theatre, my hostess looked me in the eye and snapped, "Well, I'd rather see 'Collateral.'"

So on my thirty-seventh birthday, in Canada, I watched Tom Cruise shooting people in cold blood, rather than the peerless Reese wrapping nineteenth-century aristocrats around her little finger. It wasn't such a big deal, which is why I didn't make a big fuss; a fuss would have been petty and embarrassing. It just sort of happened that I didn't feel like calling my Canadian hostess again until March. Of course, she wasn't calling me, either; over time and distance I could practically feel her seething, 'Serena hasn't called me in months, after I put her up for four days over her birthday, and listened to all that crap about her stupid broken heart.'

Over time my gradually healing mind began to pose the question, "Is this, then, friendship?" And the answer emerged, serenely and kindly, "No."

Which is, to this new person I've become, okay. The old me would have felt guilty, as though I were the one who had been selfish and petty, and envious and unforgiving. But that person is dead, killed by codependency. I've been thinking of making a T-shirt, or a bumper sticker: Codependency Kills. Maybe that sounds melodramatic. It's been running through and through my head.

It still surprises me when people don't get over it. My ex-friends are not horrible people, most of them--they can be generous and loving and fun. We've had a lot of wonderful times together. But over six months it has never once occurred to Neneng-girl, "You know, maybe it was a little childish of me to expect that Serena would include me in all of her projects, no matter how tentative or unsuitable, and unwise of me to force the issue when she was already under stress. I've been a bit spiteful, these last six months, failing to return her emails and phone calls, blowing off her exhibition and disinviting her to my events. Maybe I should call and apologize."

So, in peace and in gratitude, I am Letting Go.

This year on my birthday I had, at last, a reception for my show. Art receptions are a bit like college keg parties--people who attend them act like they are bestowing a bigger favor than people who throw them. I am not a trendy person at the moment; my art reception was not mobbed. Nobody was there who had the potential for being able to afford my work, at any time in the near or distant future. Not only did John Mayer fail to pop in and spontaneously perform acoustic renditions of "Clarity" and "Something's Missing," but H. couldn't even make it with his accordion.

But neither did I have a second to stand around wondering if anyone was coming, and for this I am grateful. Some Arts Circle people came, and one of them gave me a little jade frog, which is currently residing in my favorite plant. One of my clients came, the one who wrote a few months ago to say that I had 'inspired' her. A friend of my ex-boyfriend's came, the one who made a point of attending all of my openings even though we were never close; she is now separated from her husband of a year and a half, and looks as though a 16-ton weight has been lifted off of her head. "Last time I saw you I was such a mess," she said. "You are talking to someone who was a puddle of jelly for a year," I replied. "I would never judge you and I'm so glad you're here." Some of my less flashy and more dependable friends were there, and a friend of my mother's, whom she met at a knitting convention, and who turned out to be the retired executive vice-president of MOMA, in charge of publicity, marketing and fundraising. We all had a lovely time, and by eight-thirty I was ready for bed, and not at all interested in enabling the gentleman who followed me and Mom to the train station, hoping for a dinner invitation. Hint: social cheek kissing is not supposed to be damp; and I do not date men over fifty, particularly if they are still renting.

The gallery extended the show. They are renovating and don't want to change the art until after it is done; thus my show will be up until they can book a contractor, which means that it could very well stay there all season. I can't afford to hope that anything more will come of it, though. I did the best I could, postcards and emails and website and urging friends and family to push every remote contact button they could; the fact is that the gallery didn't help, I haven't reached critical mass, and it's time to ratchet up my massage practice and turn off the air conditioning.

Wonder Wheel

In a little while
You will come to life
You'll be bursting open like a morning glory
Going up in flames like a hundred story
Building on fire

At the beginning of the week I thought my social life was picking up. Monday: yoga. Tuesday: Arts Circle meeting and performances at Chashama. R. decided to perform, called me up and asked if maybe I was driving, could I pick her and H. up on the way? It would be such a help. I said well, I was planning on taking the train, had to pick up some stuff at Pearl, but maybe I could change my plans. Patsy.

Seeing R. and H. was nice, and H. said he'd be into playing jazz accordion at the closing party for my show, did I mind if he brought a cellist, too? That would make my YEAR, I told him.

(Oh, yes, the gallery finally agreed to let me HAVE a closing reception, after refusing me an opening, only after hemming and hawing and saying that they were going to be painting and re-flooring the showroom. Then they looked at the calendar again and said oh, we apologize, the 6th is DURING your show, of COURSE you can have a party then, we thought it was afterward. Are you hiring a caterer? No, I told them, I was just planning on buying some cheap wine and some plastic cups and sending out an email. Art receptions are not complicated.)

So everything was ducky when we arrived at Chashama and found parking right in front, and the door was locked so all the core members congregated on the sidewalk, and I introduced R. and H. around because I actually knew everybody. Then R.'s cell phone rang. "Hi sweetie, there's parking in front," she said. Neneng-girl was three blocks away.

"Do you mean Neneng-girl is actually COMING?" I asked. I haven't heard from Neneng-girl in months, ever since she made a big production about "let's leave this issue behind us" and didn't leave it behind, letting her resentment show in little gibes, and trying to 'prove' something, and passive-aggressive behavior like 'forgetting' to invite me to her performance event even though I called her that day and asked for the address. I have not been up for a Confrontation about it; I just haven't called, and she hasn't called either.

"Yes, I asked her to videotape me," said R.

So when Neneng-girl pulled up I gave her a big wave and a hug and introduced her around. 'This is my friend Neneng-girl," I said.

The core Arts Circle group got down to a meeting, while R. set up her performance piece with the help of the tech guy. This was the first meeting in which I got the sense that the group was starting to Bog Down; the same familiar faces were there but no new ones, and Grigorio brought out the same familiar pieces of paper with "Needs" and "Offers" written on them, which in every meeting we have told him why they're useless. This time he had printed them up on bigger paper; he still hadn't gotten around to including anyone's contact information.

We had been chasing the same circular discussion for quite some time when R. signalled to me. "I've decided not to do my piece, the video projector isn't working," she said. "We're going to meet my brother around the corner for dinner. We'll come back later."

(N.B.: In New York, "We'll come back later" is code for "We're ditching you for the evening, and possibly forever.")

No extra people showed up for the "performance" part of the evening, and I listlessly sat through some casual renderings of Broadway-esque music which my avante-garde performance artist friends wouldn't have liked anyway. I drove home along the FDR thinking, "I'm okay, I feel pretty good, actually, I'm not hurt," then when I heard my little sister's voice on the answering machine I burst into tears.

"This has been an incredibly difficult year for me, I'm dealing with my codependency issues, I can't see any way I could have done it differently, but JESUS. You set one crucial boundary, and suddenly you have no friends."

"Neneng-girl doesn't WANT friends with good boundaries," mentioned my sister. I had never thought of that before.

In a little while
You will speak your mind
You'll be opening up before the biggest jury
They'll be judging you
And you will worry
Did I do all right?

Wednesday: massage client. Thursday: EAI meeting. Friday: private party at Coco Bar, a new wine and chocolate bar, as guest of director of EAI. Weekend: go upstate with O. and possibly R., to see avante-garde theatre and look at real estate.

Hint: It's mid-afternoon on Saturday and I'm still in the city.

Wednesday afternoon I took a look at my calendar and realized that there would be no time to go visit Horley, and I really wanted to see her. Horley is a lot like me only ten years older; we swap bodywork and stories of failed relationships with crazy people, and both of us feel a lot better afterward. I called her up and said, "Horley, my calendar is full but I want to see you, can I come over late? For just a little while?"

Horley had some other friends over, but when I showed up with two large bottles of Guinness I was warmly welcome. My psychological instincts were correct; Horley's former-best-friend is acting a whole hell of a lot more psycho than Neneng-girl, trying to force Horley to quit her new job and take another one at far less pay, all for the sake of Horley's friend's personal grudge. Three of us weird, older, single artist women sat up late discussing codependent relationships and the possibility of getting a soul retrieval. Thursday I woke up late with the beginnings of a cold, but it was worth it.

I can see you caught in the gap between
This that and the other thing
And you're about to feel
What life is like on the other side
Of the ticket booth counter to the greatest ride
The Wonder Wheel

Thursday's EAI meeting was a landmark: the first time I have EVER walked into a room full of strange artists who were friendly to me. It was like suddenly entering an alternate reality. I think this is largely due to the personality of the director, Jerry, who is an indefatigable dynamo, getting volunteer labor and donations out of people by chronic cheery phone calls and judicious flattery. Last week we spent about three hours on the phone, collaboratively completing the mind-boggling task of writing a letter to effectively solicit donations from corner stores all over New York. My first effort was so flip and sarcastic that I thought I'd be hounded out of the group (Local Genius Perishes in Frigid Basement; 'Folks round here don't know from art,' says neighbor) but instead they laughed really hard, softened it a bit (Local Artist Perishes in Basement; 'I didn't even know an artist lived there...' Not if we can help it) and printed it up. When I arrived at the meeting, Jerry said, "I'm shaking everyone's hand, but I'm giving YOU a hug."

The meeting went well and ended on time; I ferried a little artist home who lives near me, and the moon was bright. "It's a sign," she said. "Things are happening."

Thursday I emailed O. and asked if we could leave on Saturday morning for the Catskills, since there was a Friday evening event I wanted to attend. I didn't hear back from her. Over the last month or so I've noticed that whenever O. and I get together, it's always me that does the phoning, and the inviting, and the maternal nurturing and cooking of meals and clucking over O.'s troubled life. O. is a lot like me only nine years younger; for the first time in my life I feel like I'm engaging in a circle of mentorship. She always expresses gratitude and enjoyment over our time together, but sometimes I'd like to be the sought-after friend. Friday I called and left a message; "I haven't heard back from you. Are we still on for our trip?"

The phone didn't ring all day, except for a client who wanted a last-minute booking, which I was glad to give him despite my cold. Jerry called late. "We're going to the Coco Bar later, around nine-thirty or ten; we'll see you there." In hindsight I should not have accepted his invitation; going to a 'private party' in a commercial establishment as a guest of someone I hardly know is a flimsy excuse for postponing a trip. But lately I've been wanting to meet new people--particularly competent, intelligent, friendly people, to replace the flaky, abusive ones that I've spent my life attracting. It seemed like a good opportunity.

I showed up at the Coco Bar at 10 PM on the dot. A survey of the front room, back room, bar and garden quickly established that there was nobody there I'd ever met before, no host to welcome stragglers, and nowhere to sit down. I felt like a complete idiot. This was due partly, no doubt, to the cold and to the fact that I spent most of my week stressing myself into strange circumstances with strangers. But I was unable to face it. I turned right around and went back to my car.

Out of loneliness and desperation, and the fact that the moon was full, I decided to drive to Coney Island instead of straight back home. Traffic was bad; people honked at me; I had a meltdown, and a concerned driver asked me if I was okay, if I was lost, then asked me out for a drink. I shook my head, "No, I've just had a bad evening." His rear window was full of stuffed animals.

It's probably thanks to the new law about driving with cell phones that two or three or four of my girlfriends weren't the recipients of hysterically abusive phone calls at this juncture. As it was, I decided to harangue them from the beach.

But then when I got there it was Coney Island, and it was open. I decided that before I went to make abusive phone calls, I'd walk around a bit. I got a ticket for the Wonder Wheel.

In a little while
You will be all right
You'll be perched on top of a picket fence
With a royal sense of permanence
And you'll fly away in style

--"Wonder Wheel," © 2000 by Monica Ann Crigler of Goats in Trees, CityBird Music, BMI

After that I got a funnel cake, which I haven't had since I was about thirteen--a ring piped full of batter and deep-fried, then covered with powdered sugar. Blech, delicious. I walked with funnel cake down the boardwalk until I found a bench far enough away from the pounding rap music that I could hear the waves.

As I was thinking, "wow, I bet there's grease and powdered sugar all over my face, but I don't care," an obviously intoxicated young gentleman in a wife-beater and gangsta pants wandered up from the dunes. I thought about leaving, then decided against it. He staggered up to the railing between us and leaned on it.

"Are you okay? Where are your friends?" he inquired.

"I'm getting away for a bit. What happened to you?" As he came into the light, I could see that he was sporting quite a nice shiner and an array of violently purple marks up and down his arms.

"Oh, I got jumped. Aubergines," he slurred. "Oh, you don't speak Italian? Means 'eggplants.' Black dudes. I was on their turf. I told them I was just visiting my aunt in the hospital, but it didn't make any difference."

"That sucks," I commiserated. "Nice tattoo; did you design it?"

"Oh, this? Yeah, I did! This other one was done by a friend who learned it in Ruykers, you know, the prison island. With a guitar string. It's not perfect, you can see the holes."

"It looks good that way," I said sincerely. I gave him the rest of my funnel cake. He asked, politely, if he might sit down; I assented. We discussed our ages, nationalities, jobs, friends. I'm thirty-eight, single, and Texan; he's twenty-two, second-generation Italian-American, and the sole support of his mother and aunt. He told me about his gang in Garrison Beach. I told him my best friend ditched me. We waited to see whether the moon would come back.

"Can I put my arm around you?" he inquired.

"I'm too old for you, babe," I told him.

"Hey, I've done women lots older than you," he remonstrated.

"Well, congratulations!" I replied. This seemed acceptable.

"I'm really glad I met you," he declared.

"I'm glad I met you, too."

"Are you lying?"

"If I didn't want to talk to you, I'd have walked away already. You're a great guy, a friendly guy."

"That's right, I am," he declared, as though discovering it for the first time. "I get along with everybody. I know everyone in Garrison Beach."

"It's time for me to leave; my parking ticket just expired. You have a wonderful life."

"Hey!" he called, holding out his arms.

Oh, why not, I thought, and kissed him, just once. He was emphatic about it but didn't follow me. As I drove home I thought, wow, I just kissed a boy. For the first time in over a year. We never exchanged names.

The movie version

of my life will almost certainly have to feature this scene, so I hope I can do it justice.

Cast of characters:

Grigorio, ~43: composer, pianist, Arts Circle director. Spindly, stoop-shouldered, ingenuous, intense; mop of untidy curls in prescribed composer style; slightly over-dressed for any occasion.

Crank, ~47: hippie/mystic of indeterminate profession; suspected of still living with his parents. Carries chess board at all times. Bad teeth, smoker, not necessarily an alcoholic but certainly plenty drunk on this occasion. Stained clothing, too many bags. Closely resembles any given homeless person, in fact.

J.R., ~65: entrepreneur, CEO, mystic, populist. Plotting 25-billion-dollar deal to transform Governor's Island into a World Paradise of Art and Culture. Could be a lunatic and a bounder for all we know.

Serena, 37: painter, healer, blonde. Wearing, on this occasion, poufy yellow skirt, black athletic shoes, and black cut-off T-shirt reading "Brooklyn: Where the Weak Are Killed and Eaten."

Scene 1: Friday evening, 8 PM, The American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. It is Free Night and jazz music wafts through the giant glass globe of the north atrium.

Security guard: Nice shirt.

S: Thanks. (encountering G. on stairs) Sorry I'm late.

G: Sorry, what for? Guess what--Crank is DRUNK. I don't know how much we'll be able to accomplish.

S: Ah, well. (We enter jazz atrium via cloakroom and roped-off area containing private party, full of wealthy donors eating cánapés and drinking martinis.)

G: Crank asked me to guard his bags and chess board while he went out for a smoke. Can you imagine? I refused. I'm not a chess board babysitter.

S: How do you do? I'm Serena.

G: You two haven't met?

Crank (to Me): You've almost got it. You're only lacking the littlest bit.

S: Can I get a drink around here?

G: They're overpriced. Crank brought beer in his bag.

S: I'll wait.

C: Do you play chess?

S: Not really.

C: I have a system worked out where I teach kids to play chess, only I'm teaching them the Truth, because they and I are equal to the other kid and them, and the universe, and it's all one and we are brothers. You know.

S: Yes, I do know.

G: I like to go through strange magazines, here, for ideas; look at this, and this, and this...

C: J.R. has a penthouse up the street from here. (Gets out cell phone and dials.)

C: We can go over to J.R.'s, like, now.

S: Are you SURE?

G: We only stay half an hour, tops.

C: Half an hour, it's cool, man. I'm gonna pee. (Exit.)

G: Can you BELIEVE he asked me to babysit all this stuff? Look at all this. I'm gonna stand here while he smokes, right.

(We look at magazines and listen to jazz.)

C: (returns after long interval, bearing fake long-stemmed rose.)

S: For me? Did you meet a Mexican in the bathroom?

C: No, a black lady. (Looks around at empty hall, beerily confused) Is it over?

Us: YES. We need to go now.

C: Sure they're not just taking a break?

Us: NO. It's over. We're getting kicked out. (We depart, bearing rose, bags, magazines, chess board.)

C: Do you believe in telepathy?

S: Of course.

C: We could look into each other's eyes and know that I am you and you are me, and all is one.

S: Or not.

C: You're my sister, and I'm your brother, and maybe, maybe not. Sure you don't play chess?

S: Not really.

C: (to G) Serena is the sexual chi of this project, but she's not quite there yet.

S: I channel through all SEVEN chakras, thank you very much.

G: How far is it? Should we take a bus, or a cab?

C: This is a very important evening. You, me, Serena, and J.R. are the four core elements of this project. We have everything we need. Big things are happening.

G: What about Lolita, and Archimedes, and Horatio...

Me: What is "this project," anyway?

C: We could split a cab. Seriously, my life is brighter knowing that you exist.

(Cut to front of J.R.'s building.)

G: Who paid for the cab?

S: I did. You guys can buy me a beer.

Us: We're here to see J.R.

Security guard: Penthouse. Go right on up.

S: This J.R. is obviously a friendly guy.

Scene 2: J.R.'s penthouse. Rambling set of rooms crammed to the gills with books, good art, bad art, collections of glass and marble eggs, seashells, VHS tapes, china, dead plants, live plants, Persian rugs, antique furniture, fire irons, grand piano. Wrapped on three sides by a terrace overlooking Manhattan, now covered in scaffolding. Smells like great-grandparent's library.

S: Thank you for inviting us. What a lovely place.

J. R. I share with a 91-year-old man who has lived here for 65 years. Rent-controlled. I came for dinner 10 years ago and never left. He's in Fire Island for five months. Sorry about the scaffolding.

C: (grabbing Serena by the neck) Trust me.

S: (tense, standing mid-room) I'm a massage therapist. Find the bad spot, I'm testing you. No, you missed it.

G: The piano is calling to me and I must play Beethoven. But here I have a list of four important issues, which I must preface with an overview, because I'm the sort of person who likes to summarize first. Bullets, one, two, three.

J.R. Yes.

C: (interrupting) This is a very important evening; here we have the four core elements of this project. We can put together a radio program, the four of us in this room, we can revitalize WGBI, I have contacts. This is a vision.

J.R. What?

C: You've heard of WGBI?

G: The four of us? What about Lolita, Archimides, Horatio...

C: And I'm working on getting a website, AC dot IC dot org. Intentional Community dot org, they're not exactly but I know...

G: There's the question of standards, quality versus quantity, perhaps we have levels of membership...

J.R. Excuse me, one thing at a time.

C: I'm going to go smoke.

G: (continues at great length regarding logistics)

J.R. I was drawn to your project; it's what we're trying to accomplish. I take orders from the Man Above. You (pointing at S.'s "Brooklyn" T-shirt) are crucial to us.

Crank: (returning) Serena is the sexual chi of this project.

S: I SAID, all SEVEN chakras, thank you.

Crank: (maundering) Out of all projects, Serena chose this one. She chose us. And...

G: Excuse me, I'm almost finished. (goes on at great length)

S: What we need is a software engineer and a librarian.

J.R. And who is Serena L.?

S: I am the voice of efficiency and serenity. It's time to go.

G: But first I must play Beethoven. (Fade on G. playing schmaltz, J.R. tired, C. drunk, S. impatient and embarrassed.)

Scene 3: Interior of Mexican dive restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue. Very hot, no A.C. or fan. We are the only English-speaking patrons.

G: Is there a waitress?

S: Let me explain about Mexican waiters.

C: (handing S. a beer) You have to promise me a game of chess.

S: I used to play Socratic chess.

C.: (interrupting) You see, it's more than just chess, it's the chink in the mind that needs completing.

(S. takes a sip of beer. C. takes it back and drinks. S. orders own beer.)

G: Do you understand what he's talking about?

S: I've got his number.

C: I like to think I'm unique.

S: I've known a lot of Cranks. The last one was named Clarissa; she visited me last Christmas. Blonde, gorgeous, hairdresser, insane. We're not speaking.

C: I'm sorry you've been hurt.

S: It's not like that.

G: Excuse me is there some sort of budding romance going on here?

S: No, Crank is just being obstreperous.

C: Hey, I want to look into your eyes and know that I am you and you are me and all is one. It doesn't HAVE to be sexual.

S: Back off. I am Not Available.

G: Oho!

C: (cut to the quick) Hey, I know TEN guys like J.R. I could finance your project in a heartbeat.

Scene 4: train station. C. in state of devastated melodrama. G. and S. discussing metaphysics with great energy.

S: You see, none of this exists. It's a projection of the Mind.

G: What do you mean? Of course this exists. Here, (touches arm) this proves it.

S: No, this is merely a perception. Perceived reality is a hologram.

G: This is scientific terminology. Explain.

S: Are you familiar with the new quantum physics? A particle is only a particle when it is observed; when you look away, it's a wave.

G: (insists on detailed explanation)

S: Okay, let's say you have a bowling ball and some sand. You roll the ball in the sand, and it leaves a track like this. Only then you look away for a second, and when you look back, there is the ball, but the sand is going like this (makes wave pattern with hand).

G: I don't understand.

S: Okay, you have a bowling ball...

(Train arrives. Conversation on metaphysics continues while C. stalks off to rear car and sets up chess board.)

G: What is up with Crank?

S: He's not my type; he stinks, he's got bad teeth, he's drunk and insane. Maybe he's reading my aura, maybe he's telepathic, but he's still RUDE.

(S.'s cell phone rings)

C: My life is brighter knowing that you exist.

CURTAIN

Reality & dreams

It was only after I fully woke up that I could begin to classify it as a nightmare. During the dream and for several hours afterward, it seemed logical, normal and inevitable that I should have been sentenced to death for an obscure misdemeanor, execution to be carried out next week, with no possibility of appeal. I had one more trip planned, and my aunt volunteered to take me to the airport. Only she was driving from the back seat; I urged her to get into the front, because 'there are no brake pedals back there,' then made a lunge for the driver's seat myself. Unfortunately my aunt was too quick for me, and steered the car directly into a pile of upside-down bicycles in the middle of the street. I yelled, "what are you THINKING?", my aunt burst into hysterical tears, and I hijacked one of the bicycles and headed off for the airport. Soon, however, I realized that among other problems, my watch had stopped, and it was already too late to make the flight. I considered the possibility of getting onto another flight, then thought, 'wait, I only have one day to live. Maybe I should spend it with my family.' My family were looking for me, but none of them seemed too distressed about my impending execution, and nobody had thought of a lawyer.

This is pretty directly connected to my current financial situation. Upon waking consideration I realized that 'impending execution' is EXACTLY how it feels. I'm almost out of money and I have not found a stable source of income in the three years I've been here. Jobs from hell are impossible to come by, and it makes me physically sick to think of doing one. Not enough art is selling and not enough clients are calling. I am at my fucking wit's end, and deep in the back of my mind, for the last year and half or so, I have been considering suicide as a more or less practical option.

If anybody tells me I am lazy I will pound them into the asphalt. I've written the cover letters and revised the résumés, I've put my heart and soul and most of my capital into starting my own business, which was slowly sabotaged, undercut and finally shattered by a scumball of a poorly-chosen boyfriend. I have bravely coped with both the subsequent depression and the psychological re-structuring necessary to ensure that I don't make such an idiotic mistake again. Simultaneously I have run and marketed a healing practice, hampered by the fact that I have to do it illegally, written another business plan and worked diligently to get it sufficiently financed; simultaneously I have run an art career, including applying for grants, residencies, exhibitions and fellowships, maintaining a website, publicizing hard-won exhibitions entirely by myself and, oh, I forgot, PRODUCING THE GODDAMN ART. That's THREE fucking full-time jobs. Three. And I am still spending roughly two thousand dollars a month more than I am earning.

I am angry and frustrated and miserable and I need some help. My aunt, as evidenced by her salient presence in my dream, is doing her best to help; in her ongoing, never-say-die quest for a rich husband, she has been corresponding with a 72-year-old Harvard lawyer in Long Island, whose son-in-law runs the type of art gallery that actually sells art for the kinds of prices you need to survive in New York City. Only her friend cannot manage to type in the URL to my website so that it actually appears on the screen. It's an easy URL and the last twenty-five times I checked it, it was working fine. But Oh Well. My aunt's heart is in the right place, and her common sense in these matters far outstrips my dad's, who last month was telling me I should check out Taos, New Mexico; evidently, they have galleries in Taos. Imagine that. I told him, okay, do you have a friend who buys expensive art, and who will recommend me to a dealer who sells expensive art, and is willing to pay to ship my art to Taos and promote it to a list of promising collectors? Because if not, I'm not interested. This Is Not A Game.

I hate to harp on the subject, but nobody is asking my brother-in-law the architect, who is currently working 80+ hours a week on a startup real estate development project and not drawing a paycheck, to get a temp job to pay the bills. Nobody is asking my brother the mechanical engineer, who also works 80+ hours at a startup which is not turning a profit after five (?) years in business, to work evenings as a bartender until someone buys a truckload of nano-silver. No, people are actually INVESTING in my brother and brother-in-law, and if I had any capital left, I would too. Only since I'm the only one who believes in me, I am my only venture capitalist. I wish I could sue myself.

I wasn't intending to make this post into a bitch session. I was hoping to qualify my last post, also a bitch session, by pointing out that it is actually a blessing that my former acquaintances are rude sons of bitches and not worth the effort. It makes it clear that I need a new set of friends; interesting friends, intelligent friends, stable and spiritual and loving and supportive. Grown-up friends. I have a few of those and I value them highly. Maybe I'm meeting more; I've recently joined an "Arts Circle" as a core and founding member, and the energy seems promising. All the members are grown-ups, with actual careers in the arts. They all have money issues too, but at least they take me, as well as themselves, seriously.

And I am practicing gratitude, and last week I did one of those housecleanings that involves delving in corners with funky vacuum cleaner attachments. I eradicated several black holes full of un-filed documents, gardening supplies and untidy stacks; I organized my bookshelves by subject AND color. I increased my usage of lavender oil and hacked at ancient repositories of cat pee. I pared down and harmonized the artwork. My home is a calmer, more nurturing place. I wish I didn't keep having visions of having to sell all my books, plants, cats, art and furniture in a sidewalk sale and move into my brother-in-law's parents' spare closet in Maine. They're nice people but even they would get sick of me after a month or two.