New York Can Always Make You Smile

A sign in the Bronx- sent to me at my work email.

Please Tell Me You're Only Sensationalizing

Mayor Nagin called it the "mother of all storms."

People wouldn't be hauling ass out of N.O. if he'd called it a "potentially bad storm."

News reports are also using monster terminology. (Though the word devastating has only yet appeared in reference to Katrina.)

I told my friend Christina about my new weather map obsession. "I'm an engineer, I can tell you they're just using a model," she tells me.

The news reports are freaking me out, to say the least, especially when the Katrina/ Gustav parallels are drawn.

But what channel wouldn't draw them? This is their business boom and they milk it expertly, with raw hurricane hunter footage and video bloggers making "eerie" Katrina comparisons from the French Quarter. (I've visited the Weather Channel's site 15 times in the last 24 hours.)

So this is all just caution from a lesson hard learned and good ol' media opportunism. No potential disaster here.

Per the Washington Post: "Gustav is projected to hit the Gulf Coast region near Louisiana Monday or Tuesday, though forecasters cautioned that the track could vary."

I can stomach that. ... Time to check the satellite image.

Shit.

I've never looked at a projected path so many times -- as if staring at it long enough can make the cone move more west. Who cares about Texas.

I hate that they talk about the hurricane as if it's some interesting and fun natural phenomenon with "impressive" high winds and "amazing growth in the last four hours."

What is impressive is how smoothly the New Orleans evacuations seem to be going (from what's being said on the news) -- and how many times the Weather Channel can create videos reporting on the same situation, with a new fact thrown in here and there for variety.

It's got worried saps like me glued to its web site.

When I called Diana, who lives down there, on Friday, she sounded rushed but not shaken. She said she was at work and they were talking about their evacuation plans. She made it sound like something they do every Friday.

I don't know where she is now.

You can't reason with a hurricane, you can't threaten to sue for damages. I wish I could at least plead with him to leave New Orleans alone.

Otherwise I have to move to Brooklyn -- and then I'll be in purgatory.

No new videos up yet on the Weather Channel. Just some photos of impressively ominous clouds from Florida.

Tuesdays Are Just As Bad

The next stage in the pre-moving cycle:

Listening to a Mississipi blues show on the radio hosted by a New York DJ, trying not to have another glass of some really soulful wine while wondering whether my humble air conditioner will hold up against what they're telling me is jungle heat, and hoping everything will stay together at the seams until the last weekend in September.

I Don't Like Manifestos

A while ago I made a rule for myself:

I have to be involved in some kind of volunteer work because I can't justify living strictly for myself; it's boring and not good for the psyche.

This is not like the misplaced zeal I felt in college -- when I let a group of kids with titles like "green punk," get me indignant about bike lanes.

My altruism is simple and personal: I see people that need help and I find ways to help them.

When I Googled "volunteer, New Orleans," I got the expected Habitat sites but also loads of "green New Orleans" sites, like one whose mission it is to replace all light bulbs in New Orleans with energy efficient bulbs.

What?! I indignantly envisioned pot-smoking college kids trying to promote green living to people barely surviving in FEMA trailers.

Why are so many green programs surviving down there? I thought green activism was the domain of bored middle-class towns and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Then I take the time to read about the energy efficient bulbs and discover that they actually help the poorest reduce their energy costs. Another organization, the Green Project, salvages building materials and resells them at low cost to help people cheaply rebuild houses.

But then I come across a gardening workshop in the French Quarter and I smell patchouli again.

I'm guessing that there are so many green organizations in New Orleans because they do some very practical things for those most in need. Otherwise, I couldn't justify handing out pamphlets about environmentally healthy bulbs.

Just in case, I think I'll build houses.

That Choking Feeling

I experience life two ways lately and I’m not sure which of the two is sane.

The first way, I look at everything through a veneer of cold logic. The spurts of elation I occasionally feel seem childish to me, like cartoons that you notice aren’t real once you grow up. For example: I don’t let myself feel like a badass when I listen to Lil Wayne on the subway because I know I'm a girl in a dress dragging along a laptop case.

The second way, I let Lil Wayne convince me that I’m taking over the world -- that, in fact, I’m already in the process. This is the way I felt when I stepped off the plane in New Orleans last summer and something glorious gripped my throat.

... and also why I got choked up by Dan Baum from The New Yorker:

A long time ago, David Freedman, the general manager of the listener-supported radio station WWOZ, described New Orleans to me as a kind of resistance-army headquarters. “Everyplace else in America, Clear Channel has commodified our music, McDonald’s has commodified our food, and Disney has commodified our fantasies,” he said. “None of that has taken hold in New Orleans.”

NYC and New Orleans represent my two mindsets. Insane or not, I think it’s time that I let the latter go for my jugular.

Keeping Me Honest

I remember studying the 4 stages of culture shock in college sociology class. They are (according to this site):

1. The Honeymoon Stage


Everything about the new culture will delight and stimulate the new arrival. The language will be studied with enthusiasm and great progress will be made. Memories of home are still close to mind and this has a protective value on the individual.

2. The Disintegration Stage

This stage can arrive without warning and can be triggered by a small incident or without any cause. Cultural differences will no longer be celebrated but be viewed as a source of conflict. A person may feel confused, isolated and depressed whilst missing familiar supports.

3. The Reintegration Stage

At this stage a person may begin to compare the new culture unfavourably with home. He/she begins to reject the differences encountered. Feelings of anger, frustration and hostility to the new culture begin to surface. Comfort food from the person’s home country may be sought and consumed with delight. This is quite a healthy reaction. The person is reconnecting with what he/she valued about themselves and their own culture.

4. The Acceptance Stage

A kind of equilibrium is attained in this stage where the person learns to accept both difference and similarity. The individual becomes more relaxed and confident as he/she becomes more familiar with situations and is able to cope well. Most experiences become enjoyable and one is able to make choices according to their own values and preferences.

Here's my own pre-moving cycle:

1. The Elation, Champagne Toasting Stage
2. The "Oh this is actually real" Stage
3. The "Maybe New York isn't so bad and I'm making a huge mistake" Stage
4. The "I'm a Nutbag" Stage
5. TBA...

I've recently passed through Stage number 3 and am entering Stage number 4. It's amazing what we get attached to without even knowing it. The prospect of moving made me admit to myself what I really value.

Boxing turned out to be as important to me as I thought it was, Burlesque maybe more than I thought, my friends-- about what I thought, and a new discovery: I might gravitate more toward responsible choices than I thought.

The "I Must Be Nuts" stage involves a lot of self reproach for being so silly. But the fact that my good friend Keren (who is moving to Israel) is still in Stage 3 helps me not to feel like a lonely nut job.

My prediction for Stage 5: Holy Shit, I Still Don't Have an Apartment!

A Street Map Named Desire

This map is the result of speaking with many people in New Orleans about where I should live.

IMPORTANT: The quotes are not my own, nor do they reflect my sentiments/opinions. They are merely a sampling of what I've heard from people in the last two days, which I find interesting, unsettling, and humorous.

KEY:

Red- not safe for me.
Yellow- relatively safe.
Red Dots- areas I'm considering living in.

The dilemma this map brings up: Whether to live in the Marigny (Google just taught me how to spell that) or Magazine Street. The former is more charming and has better "atmosphere." The latter is a bit safer and closer to two very important things to me: boxing gyms and food stores.

FEAR: The idea that the only thing heating my apartment in the winter will be an open-flame heater that spews carbon monoxide and might set my place on fire.

LOOKING FORWARD TO: Paying a $60-per-month gym membership. Observing a Gospel yoga class.

What I Might Miss

This is Bruce Silverglade, owner of Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn. This photo says so much about boxing and a little about New York.

Rising Sun, Here I Come ... In Two Months

A week ago I got the email at work. In it, my boss stated simply "I decided to give it a try."

... meaning that something I've talked people's ears off about for four years is actually happening. I held on to my ergonomic office chair and fanned myself like a girl who just won her local beauty pageant.

Maybe, being in the New York Times office, it was because I didn't have the immediate opportunity to jump around and scream, or maybe longstanding dreams finally becoming reality take a while to sink in, but I didn't experience the full effect from what this email implied until last night.

I had gone over my ex-editor/boss's house for a delicious diner and we talked about doing interesting things, and New Orleans (her sister lives there).

She didn't look at me funny when I said I love damp heat and helped me revel in my memories of soggy blues bars and New Orleans grit from last summer.

In the taxi on the way home, I actually smiled at the cab driver and didn't roll my eyes when he accelerated over a pothole. Through my Pinot Grigio buzz, I realized where I'm going and I like it.