The Next Morning

Party’s over. But the city seems okay with that.

Two young men in their party suits walk home, to-go-cup still in hand, as the sun and a breeze slink up from the Mississippi.

The bum that usually takes in a huge visual helping of my ass as I bike past him barely manages a wink. He, along with all the other lechers got more than their fill last night.

My bike hits an empty Southern Comfort bottle, sending it chattering across Frenchmen street, which emanates a smell of piss and crawfish into the morning steam.

The SDT cleanup crews are already hacking away at the trash, but the confetti that found its way onto doorsteps will pay tribute for another week or so.

And if you’re hungover or just a little late to the office today, well ... we’re all in the same boat this morning -- it ain't no thing.

The Photos Don't Lie

Wrap Your Pashminas Around Your Necks Snugly -- It May Get Ugly

I received a 15 percent pay cut yesterday. Well, it was not so much received as it was betowed upon me by the advertisers that ran scared on the 1st of January.

Come back. I miss you.

You Get a Little Something Extra When You Box at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday

They're Coming to Pee on My House

Tomorrow is the Krewe De Veaux parade through my neighborhood. I didn't pay much attention to the flyer they sent around earlier this week announcing the theme will be "Stimulus Package," and naming sub-krewes with names reminiscent of the dirty jokes you and your siblings used to whisper to each other when mom and dad were in the other room.

I'm not sure if this should have been my warning. I've planned my day largely as a usual Saturday. Gym in the morning, work on Burlesque costume, perhaps some light writing in the evening, then a burlesque show at night.

I did leave in some time to observe the parade, maybe throw on a wig and dance a little to look like a local.

My friend at the gym told me that streetcars won't be running, that people would be peeing on my house, and that I should buy earplugs if I want to sleep tomorrow night.

Armed with this new information, I've put new batteries in my stun gun ... and chilled some beer in my fridge in case I can't beat em'.

Where the Game Is Big, the Dogs Are Bigger, and the Hugs Beat Them Both

I choose my Super Bowl parties carefully. At the bar I was at last night, the few fanatics had their posts by the big screen, but the crawfish being unloaded on the newspaper-covered table outside demanded just as much attention as the game.



I discovered king cake, a huge dog ...






... and the fact that Mike, the smart-ass, tactless, cartoon of a man who owns my gym, had pursued Sean, his girlfriend for more than a year before she stopped feeling revulsion toward him.





I also discovered that the city isn't as segragated as my shell-shocked New Yorker self had initially feared, when, after the winning touchdown, someone who looked like Kobe Bryant with a beard-fro wrapped his arms around my friend and hoisted her in the air repeatedly in exultation.

Her breasts were badly jostled, but she only noticed after the initial shock wore off.

Gyno-Saurus-Rex

The waiting room was bedecked with pregnant women who were trying to give off that radiant mother-to-be look, but were being outshined by the purple and gold Mardi-Gras tinsel which culminated in some sort of weird, maternity/Mardi Gras shrine at the front of the room, with sculptures of abstracted motherhood bejeweled in purple lights.

It made me feel like I should have stuffed some Mardi Gras beads into myself as a clinical gesture of festiveness.

I waited an hour. So, it seems, did everyone else. In Queens this would have led to a bitch-fest of epic proportions. Here the most action I saw was a restless toddler dutifully fetching his sneezing momma some tissues from the front desk.

Dr. DuTreil met me in the examination room. Something made me stutter like a schoolgirl when he asked me what brought me to New Orleans. It was sick, I tell you.

He left the room for me to get naked and I had a mild panic attack. I grabbed the Economist and tried to take in an article on foreign policy.

I was relieved when he walked back in with a nurse who would "observe."

The stirrups were covered in fabric with smiling masks and confetti, inviting you to grin and spread em' and let the good doctor have his way.


After the finger exam, which mildly made up for the jaws of steel, DuTreil asks me, as he's giving my cold a violated pubic area a final look-over: "Do you shave?"

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, shaving sometimes causes microscopic cuts which can lead to cysts," he explains.

"How about waxing?"

"That's fine," he says with a warm smile.

I try, but fail to analyze this exchange. He shakes my hand and tells me "It was a pleasure."

I leave feeling confused and a little smug. Should I have left a tip?


Overheard at a cafe today, said by a young, hip mother of one: “I’ve done my time reading the classics and enriching my brain."

She mentions how she now listens to the New Yorker podcast and reads the NY Times magazine.



This is the view from my front door at 9 p.m. I suspect that the nightly-burning lamp in the hallway terrorizes everyone's electric bill.