Generous to a Fault

This thing I've been saying lately, and I think it might be entirely true for me: You only have as much as you can give away.

Last night in my yoga class I had a rewarding realization about my practice and my life. Open your heart but watch your back.

My lumbar spine is too flexible, which has caused all sorts of interesting injuries and aches in my hips and knees and back. Because of this, I have to be careful in back- and forward-bending postures to make sure I'm not overarching or extending that part of my spine. I have to conscious think to distribute the flexibility across my whole spine, into my hamstrings and hip flexors and so forth.

I'm going on at length about this to explore the parallel for myself. A primary goal of yoga is to "open your heart", both figuratively and literally. You do this by binding your hands behind your back in forward bend, and humble warrior, separating your interstitial spaces, and lengthening your pecs, biceps, traps, and the deep muscles underneath. Eventually the hope is to give your heart and lungs more room and support from their casing.

I'm rambling on about this just to say: Watch your back. Don't bend over backward trying to give your heart away and destroy your foundation. Stretch only as far as is safe For You. It is a balance. It doesn't mean you can't push yourself some days, to love more people, love greater, and give more than the day before. But those days must be balanced with the days when you are careful with yourself, and practice your life gently.

More often than both of these days, however: before you throw away your foundation trying to Love, make sure you've got the support. Keep breathing into that back body, with just as much awareness there as in all you have to give.

The Best Part

More than five months later, I still get butterflies in my stomach when he calls me. Or when I'm calling to listen to his message, or to leave him a message.

He STILL makes me nervous.

How does that Happen?

Letter to a Gatsby

"As if I would write you a note before you ever left New Orleans.

The other day I went back and read the "Secret Blog" entries I have written about you and this - perhaps one day I'll share them. Likely not. But I realized it was sort of sad I had written all this about you, and little to you. So I may write you little notes until I meet someone else or am convinced you will view them as some crazy woman you used to fuck.

You surprised me yesterday when you called - and thank you. I have spent a lot of time loving and hating the uncertainty of this, and every now and then you have given me little "gifts" of clarity.

You said the other night "I have nothing to offer," and it stuck in my head. All you will ever have to offer anyone is yourself. The other stuff is both fleeting and imaginary and relative. In a way, you "did right by me" by never really offering that - because it is the vulnerability we love in other people. So, very kindly, you never let me fall in love with you. Now: I am generous to a fault and I love you - but we both know the difference. You already have everything you can ever offer anyone.

xoxo, Veritas."

Part of what I like about little cards like this one is they restrict how much you can say - really, one or two thoughts, and then you run out of real estate. I could extrapolate about this topic for a while, but it forces me to streamline it into the above.

As Heard on NPR

"Everyone has fits of peak that get moralized in email."

That's how I heard it. As I read it now, it probably was "Memorialized", but I much prefer this one.

Read more at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91625695

The Last Weekend

I got gussied up on Friday. Had a new Party Dress that I got with intention to wear it to the Gemini birthday party. Went home for a nap after work, but was still up and ready far too early. Gussied. Complete with eyeliner.

I called Gatsby to let him know; "Should I go out and buy new shoes, or can we get a cocktail?" We had a lovely nosh at Delachaise (including an incredible Valdeon: Spanish blend bleu), then hit Tip's for Bingo. I was a little disappointed with the show, to be honest - it was sub subpar for them, but the venue and the crowd (damnable free shows) make it a little more forgivable.

I drove downtown to Blue Nile for Gemini's, which I should not have done. I thought I was a grownup, right? I managed to knock my first drink all over my Adorable Party Dress. Second drink I gave to Gatsby before he drove home. He has a bit of night vision, but there is No Way I would have gotten us home in one piece. Again, I thought I was a grown up?

We went home and had amazing sex. And again the next morning. I will miss that, our evening/morning pairing.

At noon, Gatsby says to me "Let's have breakfast at Elizabeth's." Nothing sounds better to me. We take showers (poor thing had to shower at my house. He once said of my bathroom: "Does a man live here?"), throw together some real world clothes, and head out for beautifully poached eggs and pecaned bacon and mimosas. We have breakfast with the devil, who eats fruit first and pays with a gold Amex. I leave a $6.66 tip, out of coincidence (our total was $33.34) and homage. Then the devil walks home in beautiful snakeskin boots.

We take a tour of the Pilot Houses, and on the drive back into the quarter Gatsby says, "This is an awesome place." Yes it is, my dear. Yes it is.




Then off to the quarter to start drinking. We wander around, have Pimm's cups at the Napoleon House, then take a tour of my gym. Have another drink in the bar there. Only in New Orleans, my friends, does a gym have a bar in it. A full bar. And they only make one kind of smoothie.

Dinner at Coops (or perhaps that was lunch?) It was 5ish, I guess... Next it's off to the Chart Room, where we watch Round Three of the U.S. Open as well as Trixie taking home her John, Gary and George taking a stop in their carriage tour, and Chip who was looking to talk to anybody with little luck since his shirt was tucked into his briefs. We just watched everybody and made up wonderful stories.

I forget what prompted us to go to Stella. We read the menu on the way back from Coop's I guess. It was so tempting then, I guess I suggested it on our way to get Purples at Lafitte's. Those famous last words will go down in history: "We'll just get a couple appetizers."

1. Foie Gras on toast with a berry compote and roasted bananas,
2. the Most Incredible (square cut) Gnocchi that Gatsby continued to rave about into the next day; with a lobster and shrimp cream sauce and fresh fava or baby limas and corn,
3. (raw) Spearfish salad with three pepper puree and baby chard,
4. "Squash puree" that we both thought would be a mash; it was a soup of a squash our waiter defined as somewhere between butternut and pumpkin with a savory chocolate garnish,
5. then we split veal with baby vegetables.

I started with a glass of champagne to clear the palate, Gastby had a manhattan with a "real bing cherry" - none of that maraschino nonsense. Then a glass of 1978 Sauternes, recommended to complement the foie gras. I don't think I've ever drunk something older than I am: out of this world. And the bottle of white burgundy that I could still taste the next day.

Oh, and dessert! Homemade ice cream (toasted almond, fresh blueberry and cinnamon) in an ice shell, which we both thought was sugar. And the most absurdly rich "grilled cheese" of triple cream cheese and chocolate granache in a boysenberry compote.



There is nothing more incredible than the endorphin rush you get from eating incredible food and drinking outstanding wine and laughing and loving the whole night. We didn't leave the restaurant until nearly one - we have a terrific habit of closing down restaurants that I will miss very much - and after a brief stop at Mimi's to dance with the 16 year-old hipsters (when did we get so old?) I was in bed by 2am, and slept, like a rock, for twelve hours.

I have never slept past Gatsby. I rarely sleep very well with someone else in bed with me until after I'm used to them. And for whatever reason, men always sleep better than I do, even though I have slept through fire alarms and transformers exploding overnight. Sunday morning I slept through a 7 inch flash flood that made my dad call me twice. On Father's Day.

I woke at 2pm, and the bed was empty. I considered going back to bed, until I realized that I had never done such a thing before: never woken up without him in his bed. He greeted me with his standard irony-laden "Good Morning!" when I peaked out of the bedroom door. He was watching the TV on mute, and reassured me he had only just woken up.

We read last Sunday's New York Times, and watched the US Open (exciting!) (No, really, it was.) and then ate tuna fish sandwiches. I tried to seduce him while he was dicing scallions, but he's a very devoted cook. When Tiger putted a birdie to TIE Rocco, he turned off the TV, turned on some solid oldschool, took my hand and led me to the bedroom.

"Great minds think alike," I said.

I fully intended to go to a Father's Day barbecue, but instead made a final stab at the crossword while we watched the Celtics lose to the Lakers (I called it!), and finally went home at 11ish.

"Thank you for a wonderful weekend," he said before I left. I had just been thinking the same thing. Thank you for the most wonderful 5-month weekend I've ever had.

The 100th Post

Today I am grateful.

And I am also 100% myself. I finally realized that was the secret with this Gatsby stuff. I have played by his rules this whole time... or at least, I've been learning his rules.

I adore him. And I am the most honest person - and its time to start saying this stuff. To him, instead of anyone else.

If you think about it, I've got nothing to lose now.

Penultimate Century

Gatsby is moving to Denver.

That may be all I have to say really. There's enough in that one sentence that I don't really have to parse it all out.

Doesn't Gatsby know he belongs in East Egg with all the other old money? West Egg is not the place for him. Although he says he has to return to his mountain roots. There is something to be said for natural beauty. And living near family.

And he Is Moving. End of the month, he told me yesterday. Which leaves me with one good weekend, really, since he's off for a wedding the 21st. I'm throwing a party on the 28th, which looks like it will be his going away party. Or Gone Away party. If he doesn't stay for that, he's ridiculous. I suppose I should ask him to come. What's an extra day, when your lease is up at the end of the month? Why not leave on Sunday instead of Saturday?

It all makes plenty of sense for him. I'm very empathetic about this. His family is there. He wants a job that will pay off his loans. His friends are all moved away. I'm here, yes, but so it the boozing and all that. And it's summer. That's a hard time to want to stay in New Orleans. And he's out of money. All of those things point West.

Back to the mountains, and away from me.

And yesterday I was sad and weepy and today I was angry and yelling. But not at him, at Best Friend J-, who was his usual un-sympathetic self. He usually says something to the effect of "I told you so." And yes, he did, and yes he's right, but damnit that's not what I want to hear right now.

So there it is. What to do next is kinda up in the air. Now I have a "friend" in Denver, but likely not. I am very fond of him, that's true, but I think he will have another girl on the hook within a matter of weeks. And yes, he'll never meet another Veritas, but... that is that.

That, as they says, is the Truth.

Learning

I'm slowly, slowly learning. Learning that time is the only thing that will keep me from getting too attached to someone before I'm ready. Or getting attached to ideas of him instead of him.

Yoga today is about Shiva. About the destructive energy of the universe, and Shiva as "veiled destruction". Shiva is a the cosmic dancer, the Lord of the Dance. Minus the clogs. A few things to remind myself: only with a stable base are you free to fly and dance. And stability comes from opposition, it comes from balance.

The strongest stance you have, whether it's in Virabradasa II or Forearm Stand, is the inherent opposition in your body. Your legs pulling towards each other without moving. Your tailbone weighing straight down to the ground, while your head floats high to the sky. One arm pulls forward and the other pulls back, one reaching into the future and the other caressing the past. Forearm stand is just as much about pushing your arms into the ground as the ground pushing back. About setting your humerus into your shoulder socket, and the energy of your muscles pushing the opposite way into the ground.

And even in stillness there is movement.

The other night, a guy I had never met before asked me if I was in a hurry. I said 'I don't know.' He said if I didn't know, I wasn't in a hurry. And then, he asked me Why I was in such a hurry? And that's the question, again. Why am I in such a hurry? What's wrong with the 50 year plan?