Dear Doctor I'm Damaged

“When sex, drugs or Rock and Roll are no longer the answer, my friend, clearly the question is bigger than both of us” my mentor was in the habit of saying. Of course, he was also in the habit of remarking that: “today was the first day of the rest of my miserable f_cking life!”
Speaking of my existence (miserable or not): the question now is: how do I change ennui to élan or, how to lift the mantle of blues that The New Year traditionally brings; and/or: what do you do when the gumbo of your life tastes flat? No pep in your step, no glide in your stride, no gut in your strut and no woogie in your boogie? Or, for Chrissakes, ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!
Qu’est-ce c’est when there’s no more shelter in you mother’s little helper?
I think that it’s time for a trip. You know me; there’s no problem so big that I can’t run away from, and if I don’t take a break….I’m going to have a problem. I’m going to have more than my usual challenges (that which I can overcome), I’m going to go into negative land, as a friend calls it, and become hard to live with and around.
So, what’s got me down? What am I rebelling against? Name it, I can’t. It’s just everything these days seems to conspire to piss me off and no sooner than I get my blood pressure back under control than, as the man says, “BAM!!”
Am I going to give you a hundred and twenty examples of stuff that happens? Shall I tell you about my nineteenth nervous breakdown? Noooo, I could… but I’m not going to.
Instead, I’m going to point you to the way out of this asylum that we call home. By the way, I truly believe that things would be better if the inmates were running the asylum. That aint happening, so the get-a-clue phone says: “make like a tree.…”
We’re going to London and Paris the first two weeks in January. This is not something that we can afford to do; but, it’s something that we can’t afford not to do. Why London and Paris, you may ask? Culcha dawlin’! And distraction. And it will be less expensive in January, and it’s between the busy Christmas season and the busy Mardi Gras season. And if you need to ask that question again---it might be time for you to consider therapy.
Consider this: they are both cities that are a lot like New Orleans is supposed to be; charming, quaint and with a fun mixture of visitors and working stiffs, where one street off the beaten path will put you into someone’s neighborhood. There’s good food to be found and shops, galleries and museums. The folks there are not overly gregarious nor are they rude; and the thing that strikes me most there is tha, pretty much, everybody is content with their station in life. And, add to that, they were both once great cities, like us, and they are both great walking towns (with rivers). Oh, they speak funny over there too… like we do.
There the similarities end. New Orleans has, from the beginning, been Europe’s bastard child; wild reckless and irreverent. Spoiled. We are the eternal adolescent, playing dress up and never cleaning up our rooms or doing our homework. Staying out late and coming home smelling of booze and sex. Greasy kid stuff in our hair and blood on the saddle. You can’t live here and not notice. If London and Paris are like that, I swear, I will not notice.
The Tate Modern has opened since last I was in London and I want to do some touristy things while I’m there this time; no phone, no pool, no pets. We’ll get to Paris via that speed-ball of a train that goes under the English Channel and emerges in the French countryside like a bat out of hell. Paris is so lovely that it makes me want to smoke cigarettes, keep my hands in the pockets of my unpressed trousers and slouch around. Guess where I would really like to live more than New Orleans?
Oh, I’m not through living in New Orleans for a while; but, that’s something that can change with the next mugging, murder or mayhem on my street. The next time that I step around body waste, litter, or the contents of someone’s drunken stomach might just put me over the edge. The next time that I read about someone’s child taking the life of someone’s child or the indictment of another elected official or the next reaming that we’re going to take because it’s our turn in the pork barrel, I just might be ready to kiss this third world country farewell.
I’m sure that in the future, in my own time I will be ready to miss New Orleans; however, not now. UNLESS----if somehow, someway an opportunity to relocate across the pond occurred, I’d be out of here like a shot. Watch my tail-lights gleam. Rollin’ like those tumbling dice; sixes, sevens and nines! Bon jour my honey, bon jour my baby, bon jour my rag-time gal; send me a kiss…by wire!
It’s that or medication. Or a glimmer of hope, a show of promise, a hint, an allegation, a rumor of impending recovery. So far, that’s not happening either, the homeless numbers are off the chart, our city services are pitiful at best and I’m not getting any younger or more tolerant of ignorance.
Last Saturday while strolling down Royal Street with a glass of champagne, going from one art gallery reception to another gallery opening on an unseasonably warm evening, everything was right with the world. What we need, in a perfect world, is that we get our city mobilized 24/7 until we’re up to snuff, wake up to what century we live in, stop sniveling and get the !@#$%^&* to work, do our jobs and stop taking advantage of each other. In other words, like the Joker said: “What this city needs… is an enema!”