Portrait in Linen

Bayou Writers’ Group: One Day Writers’ Conference
Saturday, November 15, 2008
8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Central School
809 Kirby St.
Lake Charles, LA  70601

Speakers:

• Randy Denmon, author of The Lawless Frontier
• Paula Murphey, editor of Boy’s Life Magazine
• PJ Nunn, publicist & owner of BreakThrough Promotions
• David LaBounty, editor of The First Line literary magazine

On The Wall First Page Contest

You have to grab an editor or reader’s attention on your first page. Send us your best first page (250 words max, double-spaced). Put your name on the back. Conferees will vote on their favorite. Mail your first page with your registration form & conference fee to

A. Dilmore
2177 W. Gabriel Sq.
Lake Charles, LA 70611

Directions:

From I-10 East, Exit 31-A, Enterprise Blvd.Right on Broad St., left on Reid, right on Kirby.

From I-10 West, immediately after crossing Calcasieu River Bridge, Exit 29 onto N. Lakeshore Dr.  Go straight through the light onto Broad St., right on Kirkman, left on Kirby.

Park in rear of school.

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For conference schedule and registration form and instructions, visit the Bayou Writers’ Group website.

Best friend’s birthday celebration at Downtown Alive! Planned all week for it.  Wrestled over what to wear, but finally settled on wine-colored chiffon ruffle top with 3/4 sleeves, dark-wash jeans, and black high-heel boots.  Party of five: Josie (best friend), Moi. Miner, Meriweather (Miner’s little sister), and General WestPoint (friend).

Recipe for Disaster:

• 2 “Chocolate Labs” (consists of Kahlua, Creme de Cacao, Bailey’s, & cream) - Blue Dog Cafe
• 1 STIFF margarita - anonymous bar (Could be called “The Vault,” on account it was formerly a downtown bank)
• 1 buttery rhymes-with-ripple - Karma Nightclub & Lounge

And forgive me for saying so, but it MUST be said:  Karma NIghtclub & Lounge is one of the trashiest places I’ve ever been in.  Granted, it was a Friday night.  Maybe Fridays are normally a bit on the wilder side at that particular establishment.

And granted, I haven’t been to a “club” in over 10 years.  I may not be aware how club scenes have evolved over the past decade.  And a person does age a lot between 24 and 34.  Maybe I’m just getting old and should stay away from places open after 10:00 PM.

But I dare say most would agree with me–the things going on in that place should not be going on in any club open to the general public.  Egads.

All I could say about it is, someone is going to be extremely humiliated and appalled when they see their drunken indescretions have been forever immortalized on YouTube.  A couch, a young lady cycling through various stages of undress, a series of “suitors,” and an amateur paparazzi.  I’ve never seen so many phonecams going off at the same time.

It was all at once repulsive and sad.  Repulsive, because I can’t even handle glimpses of portrayals of things like that on the TV screen.  Sad, because those people will not be young forever.  Someday, past actions will strike memory and resound in a time when a person begins to survey the sum of her life, and those kinds of blots cannot be erased from the Chronicles of Regret.

My question is, how on earth was that kind of behavior allowed to continue in a very public, conspicuous area of a very public, conspicuous place of business?  A man could be arrested for streaking across a college campus.  How come no one intervened and diffused an impromptu rhymes-with-Chex show just inside the front doors of a lounge?

Or did I inadvertantly patronize “that kind of club”?

Questions abound, and so does my shame.  I’m ashamed of myself for relinquishing my good sense and my dollars to a business whose practices I do not support, ashamed of Lafayette for having such a place on an aortic street of this city I love so much, and I’m ashamed of those in our human race who find gratification in that particular cruelty.

Clean it up, Lafayette.

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And on a somewhat relevant but unrelated note…

Veteran’s Park at 200 Feu Follet Rd. in Lafayette is described as such:

Veteran’s wall naming all deceased Acadiana veterans having served in Vietnam, natural wildlife, covered picnic areas with grills, restrooms, water fountain, children’s playground with baby equipment, fishing pond, and historical or commemorative markers.

Be that as it may, Veteran’s Park was the second trashiest place I’ve ever been.

Home School Dad’s BBQ in the park today.  Five families with all our kids, grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, salads, beans, puddings, pastries, bucketfuls of sunshine and a perfectly tender breeze that blew cool over us the whole afternoon.

BUT…

Every single one of the park trashcans were overflowing and spilling litter onto the grass.  Wind scattered fast food boxes and wrappers all over the park grounds and off into the woods.  A friend said, “It looks like those cans haven’t been emptied for weeks. You can’t accumulate that kind of trash in just a few days.”

The grass was knee-high on the kids.  Weeds and overgrowth across the walkways, around the playground equipment, and most disturbingly, the memorial to the veterans of war.

Somebody needs to make some noise.  A park is a park, but Veteran’s Park was dedicated to fallen servicemen and women who belong to Acadiana.  Surely our city has more pride, a greater sense of responsibility.

I know the city may be working overtime trying to make the transition to the new waste collection system.  And I know we’re still not recovered from the recent hurricanes.  But Veteran’s Park is not a large park, and it’s not inconspicuous.  It’s an important memorial, and it’s deserving of attention.

I was very tempted to call together the teen home schooling group and see if any of them were interested in pulling together a volunteer clean-up team.  But I’m not going to do that, because I know they would jump at the chance.  Honestly, I think this is something the city needs to recognize and pay attention to.  We have a lot going on here, but maintaining the few modest tributes to our veterans should be an assumed priority.

• sat for FIVE HOURS in the SAME CHAIR.
• heard the sound a man’s gums make when he grinds them together. (ew.)
• heard my name mispronounced in yet one more new and exciting way: “L…L…La…aaron…Langa….” They kinda gave up after the fourth try.  Funny: I always know someone’s calling my name because they get hung up on the “L.”  But I don’t judge them for it.  I tried to decode “D’Aunoy” and failed miserably.  (The correct pronunciation, by the way, is “DUN-wah.”)
• listened to five straight hours of CNN’s coverage of the “Current Economic Crisis.”  By the time I left the room, I was ready to go out and invest in gold, withdraw all our funds from the bank, stockpile nonperishables and gasoline, and install a security system and a big drooling black dog to deter looting.
• knitted until my hands began to ache.  Then I took a break, cracked my back, and knitted some more.
• realized how quickly we’re moving toward a One World Order, and how–strangely–Rocky will be fascinated and amused his favorite cult classic 1984 will become flesh.  I wonder if I should send him to Dictator Rehab.  He’s an aspiring tyrant.

Some Rocky-isms

• Rocky’s response when I threatened to withhold his allowance (which is also his coffee money):
  

  Rocky: Well then, I’ll just have to hold up the store. “Everybody get down on the ground, NOW!!! Don’t MOVE!!! – …um-yeah, can I get a tall Mochasippi with the works? – I said DON’T MOVE!!!”

  Mom: Rocky…

  Rocky: What??

• During a discussion about overdone plotting and characterization in movies:
  

  Mom: Yeah, it’s okay to exaggerate–to a point. They have to, because they only have so much time to create a character of any depth….

  Rocky: Right, and I try to do that–through dialogue and facial expressions…when I’m…um…charaterizationing–

  Mom: “Characterizationing” is not a word.

  Rocky: …Grammar Nazi.

  Mom: Rocky!!!

  Rocky: What?!

• In the middle of a group moms’ discussion at the last home schooling thing:
  

  Mom (to another mom): Rocky knows better than to do that. He knows he’d find himself perpetually grounded.

  Rocky: That’s okay, Mom. I’ll just tell everyone how you beat me and deny me food and water.

  Mom: Rocky!!!

  Rocky: What?!

• the frustration of a man who–entirely devoted to his well-refined method–saw said method fail.
• a most profound and temporal awe in a room full of glistening, jet-black baby grands, all astronomically out of our price range, but nonetheless perfect in the beauty of their craftsmanship.
• admiration for a “cotton-cloth mother” who creates with her own hands every family necessity, including any scrap of clothing that hangs on the backs of her children, and every morsel of sustenance that passes over their tongues.
• the nerve-fraying hum of two straight hours in the evening traffic rush.
• shame at having to default to M.O.M. (Made Of Money).
• satisfaction that the new thrift-store knit sweater fits perfectly.
• excitement pulling out the fall-brown shoes for the new season.
• euphoria…Barnes & Noble cafe (Starbuck’s) “Pumpkin Spice Bundt” is–in the purest sense, and as Josie (best friend) so aptly described–”The first taste of Fall.”