Put The Bass In Your Walk

Just a Second

2011-10-23T04:03:00.001-04:00

Kidney infection, flat tire, and poor self-esteem. It aint that bad. But how can you take all your clothes off in front of a crowd, sit at a bar ass-naked and still feel like nobody wants to do you or thinks you're cool? Easy.

Fuck all ya'll. I'm sick of worrying bout you.

2011-10-11T01:16:00.003-04:00

How do I feel about it... little slimey and out of character. Not very "sweet annika" but a departure from that name may be good. The beauty of life is that you can reinvent yourself with every diappointment, heart-failure, and sideswipe. And you can always reinvent yourself back. Well almost always.

I want to invent more of myself I know is there. That self that's got that swagg, and can lean on it. And the catchphrase is "honey badger don't give a shit."

Week One

2011-09-22T02:06:00.001-04:00

PMS and Pinesol

2011-09-22T01:52:00.002-04:00

Ok, so, the last 3 days have wrought a turn for the worser. A new dog is fun to walk, but not fun to pinesol and anxiate about.

And what did I say on Friday? Seems my ovaries, or perhaps some sort of breakup cycle erased 2/3 of that. Well, not erased, let's say cloaked.

My thing: at first I am better but then she gets better. In my mind of course, because how does that really change. I haven't even seen her to know that she is better, or worse. Though talking to her might help me see the worse part. That was mean. I take it back a little. Because I do miss .. her, or when she allowed me to break shit down, or something.

I know that I am still supposed to be strong and a he-woman and taking back my days n such, but I need a few more pep talks and maybe one less ovary.

For now I will say that I rock, even though I'm uncertain. But at least I have the nuts to admit the latter. There are some who don't.

Ah Feck But Not Quite At All

2011-09-18T02:15:00.002-04:00

So this turn around I'm having weird remembrances of a past beginning. Meaning I'm finally getting to back to feeling who I used to feel. And I'm not reaching to be able to say that. It's just happening, on its own. My brain is doing it for me somehow. How can this be so different than the last 2 times. I could be an old pro by now, or maybe I'm finally just succumbing to that fact that I both don't matter and matter a lot.

Give Me Mine, Valentine

2011-09-06T15:18:00.003-04:00

I've gone from making happy to wanting to be made happy and I'm reversing. The Beatles sang "All you need is love" with, I think, an implied [to give] before "is." Because if you tell someone that all you need is love, all that you think you need isn't likely in sync with all they're willing or able to give you. And the things they do give you fall by the wayside as nothing of note. The only thing one can do is give love and hope for the best. And as long as the other can take it and not treat you badly for it, you're good, I think.

Changing notes, this city's dredge is a chokehold when I came from sidewalks filled with people going somewhere. However, the bar aint set too high, which gives you more leeway to sit at bars, waste a day, and go out to lunch.

Blips of A Few Days

2011-08-15T12:51:00.002-04:00

My sister's husband forebade her to get a tattoo in New Orleans. She told me she wanted one on her asshole so she could show it to him at oportune times.

She wasn't drinking because they're trying for a kid. She never drank much anyway. She, sitting next to my brother, had the biggest glow on her face when I was on stage, smiling back at them as I detangled from my umbilical cord.

My brother watched a motions hearing with rapt attention, shushing me when I tried to whisper wise words of explanation to him. He made some observations that floored me and reminded me that he's not 8 anymore. He said maybe he should be an attorney. I'm hanging on that.

Molly sat on the wrap-around porch with them talking about babies and childhood until late at night. She told me how beautiful they were. Wish she'd listen better when I tell her she's beautiful and in many ways my dream come true. I know it. and that's why I have my work cut out for working on myself, I learned again this weekend.

Social Network was unremarkable. Except that it made me want to be more remarkable. Or more remarkable than this town suggests I be.

No Cosmic Lover Pre-assigned

2011-05-31T00:52:00.003-04:00

Ariel has been having difficulties with a man she doesn't think is her "soulmate."

While sitting with her on her couch last night trying to sip rum and swaying to Hedwig, we both realized that we won't ever find our soulmates, because there are none to be found. And love ... or the definition of it we're limited to... don't mean shit.

Got that out of the way.

Now on to something that's the truth. No more wispering words of devotion of over a sangria buzz without knowing really what the hell they mean. No more waiting with saucer eyes for that cosmic pop.

What's out there, and what we can all look forward to if we open our eyes, is first becoming our own soulmates, and then possibly finding someone who is good, but definitely not "meant" for us.

And when I find that person, I'll do them the honor of not telling them I love them, because cliche is the worst offense.

Beginning to Re-See the Light

2011-03-22T15:25:00.002-04:00

I had something when I moved to this weird bowl of swamp and circumstances. I had the important/the real things in life on a pedestal and the other shit somewhere below it looking up.

Recently found the pedestal again, now looking for stuff to put on it.

I Am My Own Badman

2011-03-09T16:03:00.002-05:00

The day after Mardi Gras brought one significant event:

My friend Marissa posted the following on her wall:

"Versus parading and drinking Ive decided to spend a day with my dad in the yard..some may call that lame but I call it father/daughter time nothing like it."

Mardi Gras felt off again this year, albeit for different, less dramatic reasons than last. I was doing everything my friends were: drinking starting at 9 in the morning, getting into an elaborate costume with a witty slant to it, trying to make contact with every acquaintance who might be in the area, smoking pot on the sidewalk, throwing rainbow beads from the balconies of gay bars.

But when I got home I laid in my shower in confusion and relief wondering why I wasn’t smiling.

I stumbled my dazed body to my computer this morning to see what crazy things my other friends had done and saw Marissa hung out with her father.

Because she wanted to.

And there’s the key.

Doing the things you think most people do for a good time rarely leads to your own good time. The real fun lies in having the courage to do exactly what you want and not let the vapid majority diminish the value in that.

Thank you, South America

2011-02-21T10:33:00.000-05:00

"Nobody can take away what you've danced."

She Looked Like She Didn't Care

2011-01-31T02:17:00.003-05:00

At any moment you have a choice to let a train of thought drag you into self-loathing and your next therapist appointment, or you can just let it go.

This weekend, thank god I chose letting go.

The urge to kick someone or nail yourself to a cross will still be there, but there's a sort of wonderful and perverse satisfaction from thinking about what a bad bitch you are when some force is trying to convince you otherwise.

So bring it on, bitches; I'll just smile and let it slide.

9 Below Zero

2011-01-18T23:05:00.006-05:00

Today is one of those days, when your brakes don't work, you're sleep deprived, and you learn and then dramatically try to accept your interpersonal relationships.

It's hard to recover from this shit sometimes, but I'm just betting on the fact that I'll have a way of bouncing back.

And it's easy to forget what doesn't matter so much in life ... and hard to think that maybe now it does.

..... You're Not Supposed to Tell a Lie

2011-01-14T00:48:00.002-05:00

On my rug face-up, fisting a cocktail and Mr. Williamson is on the turntable.

"Going Down Slow..."

Good way to fake turning the world off and out.

You can never really do it for real though. That's the bitch and the beauty of life.

Drinking Water and Keepin it Real

2011-01-04T12:47:00.004-05:00

Stuck in a Queens apartment intimidated by the cold is a perfect time to map out what ways I messed up in the last few months and concoct some hopeful fixes. Self-loathing is tempting, but that's not what the new year is about.

It's about losing weight, taking classes, flushing your cigarettes, eating less Ramen Noodles.

Since none of these are on my radar, I'm choosing instead to drink more water, learn to do a split, and stop that familiar victim babble.

As it stands I have two looseleaf pages of illegible brain babble in partial ven-diagram style.

But I have a tall glass of water and I'm feeling optimistic.

We All Get It In the End

2010-11-28T01:16:00.005-05:00

Saw a drag queen named Justin Bond do a midnight show at the Always Lounge last night.

Best thing I've seen in a long time.

I was afraid to sit up front, because I was expecting a bitchy schtick, where she might insult my footwear. And the, you know, it's on, bitch.

But Bond was like someone's chain-smoking, ex-starlet aunt who had a wisdom that ran deep from pain and too much experience - and I swear it wasn't my gin that made me want to lunge at her and ask for redemption.

The message from the songs she belted out at my noggin was, I'm alright, and so is everyone, because:

"We all get it in the end"

What she was singing about probably has more to do with anal sex than karma, but what it meant to me at the moment was:

No matter how "good" we try to be, we all fuck up, and we all deserve to "get it" in the end. Some actually do get it, and some of us bastards don't.

While I was really hoping I don't get mine, I felt a closeness to everyone in that room that night, swaying along to those words, knowing I deserve to "get it" as much as that dude next to me.

It's not that I want to be a crappy person, it's just refreshing to acknowledge that we've all been there, and we'll all continue to go there, but we don't have to be saints to keep moving forward and upward ... just human.

Where Were We..

2010-11-25T02:40:00.003-05:00

Tonight was the first night dancing on my table in my underwear made me happy again.

Very 90's romantic comedy, but I get my kicks where I can find em.

Fear and Loathing at the Curry Korner

2010-11-23T01:07:00.009-05:00

After a breakup, you have this floatsy feeling. Like you're not sure what makes you tick, or where the hell your personality went.

Today, lured by the promise of steaming Indian food, I drove up
to Curry Korner between classes, head full of dal and samosas. I swung the Buick into what I thought was a fabulous parking spot, only to hear a disgusting grating sound as I turned my wheel.

They finally got me. Those sewer drains everyone kept telling me were lurking under curbs to annihilate my tires.

This one got a bite, a good one- chewed it clear through to the tread.

That's when the adrenaline hit, I waffled for a second, forgot about the chai tea, got in the car, and savagely applied the gas. No telling when this tire would blow, and I wasn't about to pay some asshole to tow me.

I found myself doing 30 on Elysian Fields, staring down every pothole defying it to try and pop my struggling tire.

It was a heinous display of pure grit and determination despite uncertain death or maiming by tire blowout- ME AT MY BEST.

And the $30 used replacement made me smile.

Damn the License Plates

2010-11-21T02:46:00.002-05:00

So, I was waiting all month for this monthly lesbian/queer event at a local bar.

Not as a pickup thing, just to be amongst friendlies.

I'm pulling up my Buick and I see the familiar license plate... the coffee color.

Fuck.

I knew I would be THAT girl. Just didn't think it would happen so soon. You know, the one who hates the fact that her ex is probably going to infiltrate her social scene for a bit. I'm still not even used to the word "ex." Bullocks.

All told, I had a pleasant conversation and three beers. But I still wish I lived in a city where I'm a number, not a name.

Yes She Can

2010-11-19T00:05:00.005-05:00

Been thinking a lot about my terminated relationship. Terminated. So final.

Or at least it sounds final. Human relationships are never so cut and dry.

Been thinking about what I did wrong. Driving in my car to school yesterday morning, slamming down my coffee and wondering if I'm just a relationship fuckup. If I should ever try again.

(Insert existential sigh here.)

NO, I'm not a fuckup. Matter of fact, there's lot of substance here. A lot of shine.

I could comfort myself by saying we both fucked up, which is true, but a cop-out used by people who are afraid of themselves.

Because it's not about her anymore. It's about me now, and whether I can grab my fuckups by the balls and make em teach me something.

Dropsy

2010-11-09T02:04:00.004-05:00

Breakups are a weird monster. Emphasis on the monster.

I feel like I've taken a 1.5 year hiatus from myself and don't know where I am yet.

I have uncovered some truths, some good, some surprising, a lot nasty.

It's been about 5 weeks and I still feel like I'm floating, though more in anger lately than sadness.

So far I've coped by being captain pro-active. Yoga, then studying, then hip hop class, then capoiera, then - if I can stomach it- the gym.

But at the end of the day I still find myself stamping my disordered bedroom floor demanding to know why the fuck I still feel like shit.

I mean come on, I do the positive self-talk in the mirror, make lists of why we broke up, go see a school therapist, did a detox, won a goddamn boxing match, made loads of plans for "ladies nights," and started drinking tea instead of coffee in the morning. What more does my stubborn-ass noggin need?

I'm not sure, but it may have something to do with letting go.

Emotion's A Bitch

2010-11-07T21:50:00.006-05:00

It's freakishly easy to let other people ride your emotions and painfully hard to turn that ship around and say, "bitch, no!"

But the hardest sometimes is letting others help you feel ok.

Thanks Ladies for helping me say "bitch, yes."

The Obvious

2010-11-02T15:58:00.002-04:00

Today I realized something stupidly simple:

I can be whoever I want to be.

How quickly we forget.

You Can Put the Ring on Your Middle Finger

2010-10-27T00:22:00.003-04:00

I'm probably never getting married. Never really wanted to. And that's ok.

But the closer I get to the end of my 20's (and I still have 2.2 years to go), the less ok this idea looks in the movies I see, the people whose conversations I overhear in bars, and the population in general.

Come on people, why aren't you with me on this one?

We claim to be modern and aggressive and a bastion of equality for the sexes. It's all about choice for women, the ability to be what they want to be, to pummel down the status quo and have society cheering you along into the new century.

But when I proudly declare my plan to adopt a child in my mid-30's and probably become a single mom, I get: "well don't give up on finding someone just yet!"

All this "progressiveness" and we're still stuck on wedding bells.

Take a Bow

2010-10-27T00:09:00.004-04:00

I love spitting my mouthpiece onto the ring after a sparring match. How it launches from my mouth in an explosion of spit and sweat, leaving a mark as it bounces off that disgusting boxing ring.

And I can breath again.

House of the Screeching Sun

2010-10-25T01:23:00.004-04:00

It's time to write about New Orleans again. Because wasn't that the whole point of this blog?

House of the Rising Sun came on the radio today. The radio that I keep on constantly because I'm suddenly a pussy about being alone.

I cranked it up and sat back on my couch to wait and see what I would feel.

Yearning with a hint of disgust and a feeling that I'm done with this place. But by the second verse a hope that I can still maybe squeeze some beauty or feeling or ... something out of it. Maybe it's a hope I need to have because I'm essentially stuck here the next two years. That's two.

Today I was driving toward the Quarter at about 9 am to meet a friend for breakfast. I've been trying to pin her down for the last two weeks, so I needed to take this opportunity when I could get it. Plus, I overslept, so I don't know how much longer she'd wait for me with her dwindling croissant. I got lost on Chippewa, looked suspicious circling the block and few times and finally found my way toward the bridge overpass.

Right before the bridge, I saw a car broken down for some reason or another and a family standing around it. Looked like a mother, an older daughter and two younger kids, one of which was manically waving his lanky arms at any passing car. They were on the other side of the street, so I could watch them through my rear-view when I stopped at the instersection. I thought 1) why are all these douchebags just speeding past them, and 2) what if they need someothing really simple like a ride to the gas station?

I even thought about giving them my spare if they needed it. Everything in me wanted to wheel my Buick around and devote the rest of my afternoon to helping them. But I didn't.

I pushed down on the gas thinking about how Kristen was waiting. How she was already probably annoyed. And how badly I needed a friend to talk to.

So I left them there. I still feel bad about it.

On the way home, I passed a guy playing trumpet on the corner near a bus stop. I sort of rolled my eyes at how "New Orleans" it was, but turned down my music anyway to hear him play. He sucked. Just made screeching sounds and stopped to laugh at himself every once in a while. It was refreshing.

Webbie On My Hand

2010-10-25T01:17:00.004-04:00

"You're a bad bitch."

I have that written on my hand.

It's a last-grasp affirmation before bed so maybe I'll have more oompf and courage when I pry myself from my bed tomorrow morning.

Somehow, I feel like I've been here before. There's just too much emotion, stress, and forgetting between now and the last time. Suppose that puts me at square one.

But it's a new square, and I don't know what's in it. Is that a speck of wonder peering through my nervous depression?

As everyone advises: only time will tell.

And the Rest Is Drag

2010-08-24T01:03:00.003-04:00

My interpretation of RuPaul's philosophy into my guide for positive thought shifting:

Those privileged law school hoes are snickering at me because I'm carrying my books in a grocery bag.

The fact that you still look fierce while carrying your books in a grocery bag makes them insecure and they're laughing nervously.

That girl in the gym is sort of cute and it would suck if my girlfriend had a crush on her.

Honey, you can work that jump rope like that bitch never could, and you do it with heart and nerve! Your girlfriend is a damn fool if she wants something less. And your girlfriend is no fool.

It's degrading to walk past a group of men and they comment at me and call me Baby.

Put that bass in your walk! That sidewalk is your property, girl. Look at them incredulously, like, what are you insignificants even doing here? Security! And then shrug it off like a breeze.

I'm so stressed about whether or not I'll get a good job out of law school an what will become of me if I don't.

You're born naked, the rest is drag.

And How Resilient Is YOUR Skull?

2010-07-19T21:30:00.005-04:00

Everyone I know who is not from here mention wanting to "take a break from chaos" when they go on vacation. And usually when they are saying, they're at the break point, reeling from the latest power outage or police scandal.

Just this month, my friend got pushed through a glass window, I got into a laughable fender bender where the woman is trying to squeeze me with an injury claim, and it took me a week to retrieve my parcel of pasta and Wheatables from the post office.

Add that to what I've soaked up since my last trip to NY six months ago, and I can feel the chaos clamping down: I assume the owner of the bar I'm sitting in is laundering money, someone's body was just peeled from the street I'm driving on, and the fat man in the suit who just passed me is working for BP and about to go back to his hotel room to have a prostitute delivered from Bourbon, drink himself stupid, or kill his wife.

Then my girlfriend and I take a morning stroll to the neighborhood bakery, where they're playing Dylan as two stylish gay boys flirt and some well-groomed lesbians pick up their scones.

We felt hot and left with our coffees in plastic cups.

Mamas Don't Let Your Daughters Grow Up to Be ...

2010-05-20T13:38:00.005-04:00

I came out to my mom.

Coming out to me means that I met somebody who I wanted to date and they happened to be a woman. It means that I tried explaining to her that this fact does not matter to me and it shouldn't to her either.

Her reaction didn't go as hoped.

I see many similarities in my mother's reaction with my girlfriend's mother's reaction. Funny how they can be so textbook.

"But you're not meant for this lifestyle."

"Life isn't about what makes you happy."

"It's not natural."

Also makes you wonder whether this is really their heartfelt reaction or whether they're reacting to how they've been programmed by society, religion, or whatever to react.

The smoke is clearing and I still see my mother, I still see she loves my woman-dating ass, and i still know she loves to argue with me on "lifestyle choices." And I still love to argue with her. At least there's love.

I'm sure she didn't intend this, but in a way it's making me more of a fighter. Thanks mom.

But She's Got Heart

2010-04-29T00:51:00.003-04:00

In the Tyson movie I just watched, all sorts of values were carouseled around. Bravery, heart, endurance, honesty, being true to yourself, faith, etc, etc.

Makes my head spin. So which of these should one go for? What if your religion excludes some. What if you can't fit em all into your psyche? What if you don't have even one?

What if you only think you do? Should you care? And why?

Thoughts?

The Power Of Attorney

2010-04-24T03:20:00.004-04:00

This gin and water isn't doing it for me taste-wise. Hopefully it will sleep-wise.

Summary judgment, gross negligence... I like that: gross negligence. Sounds like something you'd throw around in divorce papers to make them sound tragic, or the result of wearing the same pair of socks too many times.

Law school: so far it means red beans and rice too many times a week, some confidence with just a touch more self-doubt, strange and suppressed people, and stress-induced acne.

But for some reason I'm still snuggling up to Torts. And also, there's so much more out there.

Five of Em

2010-04-16T02:59:00.004-04:00

I heard gunshots just now outside my apartment for the first time since moving to New Orleans. About 5 of them, very staccato, slow and evenly spaced.

I thought at first that they were fireworks or something, but the abrupt silence of the chatter coming from upstairs was a signal - yeah, that was a gun.

I reacted less than I thought I would. Lay in bed for a moment with my copy of the Economist, sort of peeved at first that it interrupted my reading of a story on the Vatican covering up alter-boy rape.

Then I hypothesized that getting away from the window with the light shining through it could mean my life, so I leisurely got out of bed and stood in the frame of my doorway -- the place they tell you is strongest during earthquakes.

Should I turn my light off? Oh no, that would make me look suspicious to an outside predator piece in hand. Better to pretend I never heard anything.

So, well, I'm back in bed again in front of that same lit window just 15 minutes later thinking about what that shooter must be thinking and ... I have no idea. Probably, hopefully, not concerned with my lit window.

I hear the elephant above me stirring and stomping around... A sign that he's not to concerned about lit windows either. But I'm not sure about whose stirrings to believe.

These Beasts

2010-03-23T01:10:00.005-04:00

I 'm moving again soon and hoping that in some strange way, a new apartment will change my world. I'll keep up with my dishes, not go out when I shouldn't, sit up straight on my wooden chair for days hovering over law work.

Poor little apartment. It doesn't know it's a cure-all.

It's one of those nights where I find comfort in imagining stuffing some choice people I know into a large canon and shooting them, in a cartoonish arc, to the other side of the world.

Sick With Go-Getting

2010-03-08T01:37:00.002-05:00

I'm staying up late feeling like a super-law-student entering volunteer profiles for Boston University 1L's who are coming to town next week.

Those bastards have 3.7, 3.8, even 3.9's while spending every waking moment of their non-study time doing things like teaching stepdancing in Cambodia and getting a black-belt in martial arts.

This sort of thing makes you wonder if you've been holding yourself up to the wrong yardstick.

My mother would say, ditch the yardstick.

Alright mom, I'll use it as a crop instead.

Strong Work

2010-02-10T00:24:00.011-05:00

The night the Saints won their football game, I had maybe 6 drinks and assortment of beans and cakes and went to bed early with a protesting stomach and the remains of black eyeliner smeared across my cheeks.

But I was genuinely excited over a football -- heck, a team-sport victory of any kind -- for the first time in my life.

Excited but also sort of weirded out. Does this mean I'll start taking study breaks for Sunday football games like my colleagues in law school?

I got my answer this evening from my maniacal little Torts professor. He opened the class by declaring:

"The Saints worked hard training all year round for prolonged and deserved gratification. People are saying their victory will revitalize the city -- if revitalize means getting drunk and missing work."

This professor, I learned, is a Cajun who lives on a farm and plays in a Zydeco band, so I know he doesn't hate fun -- but he sort of reminded me of why I usually don't like following sports.

As far as the Saints go, I toasted them wholeheartedly and copiously, but I'd rather go out there now and steal their strategy.

Put Your Lighters Up

2010-02-05T23:26:00.001-05:00

Gross Negligence

2010-02-05T22:34:00.005-05:00

The area surrounding the Orleans Parish Prison courthouse is a gritty sprawl of petty criminals and bail bonds "offices," some more legitimate than the rest. As soon as my Buick flies over the overpass and touches down on Tulane Ave., I feel people looking at me through my windsheild in anticipation, invisible questions on their minds:

"How much power do you have?"

"Are you going to help me, or help keep my son in jail?"

The sun is always blinding there, even when it's overcast, and the first thing I see is the grey marble of the courthouse rising up out of the hovel of Quickie marts and swaying houses, trying its best to look just. I faintly remember two gigantic sculptures of eagles.

Having only been in magistrate court, I don't really know what to make of the whole thing.

All I know is that, if nobody cares enough about you to pay a $50 bond, you can sit in jail for over 60 days on a possession of marijuana charge. Also, police have trouble spelling, and, sometimes, not embellishing on their arrest reports. They also enjoy flinging "probable cause" around.

A curfew on a person subject to house arrest is later if he has a BA in something vs if he's only got a high-school education: profiling barely pretending not to be.

But por favor, don't scoff me off as a gushing liberal. The man is there regulating for a reason (wife-beaters and 17-year-old double murderers for example) he's just not quite man enough for the airs his courthouse puts on.

The Beginning of the Decade

2010-01-15T00:10:00.004-05:00

A newly turned 27-yr old has a retrospective moment:

I'm 20 and home from college for the summer. I'm feeling angsty after having read "Please Kill Me," a sort-of illustrated history of Punk Rock. So angsty in fact that I feel like I have to rail against something somehow or be sucked into suburban normalcy before I return to school and be embarrassed under the scrutiny of my misguided-musician crush -- who, I would later discover to be an ego-maniacal ass, but who I saw at the time as the cool guy with 45's and the fatalistic attitude.

So I did what any budding punk rocker would have done -- I threw out all my makeup from the year before: when I had gone trawling to college parties with the rest of em, "shades of seduction" eyeshadow in tow -- before my life was saved by rock n' roll.

Next step: bleach hair to a crisp underneath a shopping bag, buy some t-shirts with favorite band names on them, rip holes in all my jeans (if I can't accomplish it by falling off my skateboard), and spend lots of time in my basement with my $10 record player, ignoring the suburban hell outside.

Though it has been, and continues to be at times, misguided, here's to many more years of railing against shit.

Malls Don't Stay the Same

2009-12-29T11:34:00.004-05:00

They expanded the Freehold Raceway Mall. The carousel is still there, thank God, but the sea green paint is now a sensible eggshell, a Borders bulges out of one side, and a Dick's stands as a sort of satellite in the middle of the parking lot.

Soft-Core Scholar

2009-12-01T01:41:00.004-05:00

I've always thought it would be really badass to be a scholar. But a scholar of old -- back when that was an occupation one threw oneself into with the same gusto a dedicated teacher or a doctor would. To make it your job to study and acquire knowledge.

There's a certain sense of martyrdom that goes along with it, like you sort of have to be uncomfortable through your knowledge quest -- have to read in very low light n' stuff.

That's why I'm forcing myself to sit upright at my desk for the 5th hour, no ass-pillow allowed -- feelin' that wood grain!

Aristotle and Nietzsche would likely scoff at my cram sessions of tort and contract law a week before exams. Spineless child's play, they would say. They did this sort of thing when they were in diapers.

Here's an exciting law fact that struck me: The only two things in the world considered common property, and thus without an owner, are the "high seas" and the air.

And even those- if you bottle either, you can own and sell it.

Please shoot me if I start writing in legalese.

I May Have Spoken Too Soon ...

2009-11-27T20:20:00.002-05:00

re the antibodies. ... and the wine.

Get By With a Little Help From My Wine

2009-11-27T02:41:00.007-05:00

So.. after glass two, here is what I've accomplished:

A Clinical Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T01:11:00.008-05:00

Here's a fun thing to try:

Next time you have the privilege of undergoing grief or other extreme mental anguish, pause at intervals and observe the course of your emotions. It's quite an interesting process.

The brain, or your psyche, or whatever controls the level of shitty you feel seems to work the same way your body does when it's fighting, the flu. A good physical equivalent to the way I've been feeling would be Swine flu (remnants of my earlier "eat worms n' die" party are obvious here).

The brain begins building mental antibodies the minute you feel that first tear roll away from your cornea, though you don't really realize it through all the turmoil that ensues.

And then, a little down the road, there's a distinct point, like a fever breaking, when you start seeing the fruits of those antibodies and the shitty starts to reside. Though, of course, it'll be a while before you're back to your vibrant, life-loving self.

I think I felt the break-point today -- with a little help from homemade popcorn and pleasantly mind-numbing property law lectures.

Oh Yeah ...

2009-11-25T14:50:00.001-05:00

Sleep Deprivation + Sorrow = Crazy Time.

Not advisable.

Someday You'll Be Lonely Too

2009-11-25T14:15:00.004-05:00

How appropriate:

That's the chorus of a song playing in a cafe I'm sitting in much farther from my home than I would normally travel during the week because seeing anywhere I went with her makes me cry.

I'm in the strangest, most torturous arrangement of my life.. no, I didn't get married. I'm giving her time, while only sort-of understanding what that means.

What it means to me is feeling a stinging I hedged myself against for the greater part of my mid-20's. It means suddenly seeing the fruits of my distaste for people staring me in the face in a city where everyone is the best of friends or acquaintances. It means dealing with uncertainty, that nasty little bugger that makes me squirm as I sit on my couch trying to hold on to some remnant of my job or pulls on my brain through the wine haze when I'm trying to doze off with that toy gorilla my mom gave me.

It COULD mean self-discovery, and mending, and "soul-searching" and those those other nice little ideals. But nice little ideals are always more elusive. Right now I don't have the gusto to deal with them -- just maybe to take myself by the hand again. The one hand, for better or worse, that's always there.

And at least that hand kicked some bitch's ass last weekend:

Help From a Retired Dildo

2009-11-16T10:31:00.006-05:00

There's a large, pockmarked, somewhat discolored rubber penis sitting across from me on my shelf. It's got glitter on it and pen marks and god knows what else from all the dressing rooms and bar floors it's rolled across.

My girlfriend found it yesterday on my floor next to my suitcase still stuffed with costumes from Friday's show. She said she didn't like it, cringing at its "lifelike veins." I said don't worry, my purpose when I bought it three years ago was purely costume, not personal.

But now, as I'm sitting here across from it on Monday morning it's doing me a different kind of service. It's refusing to let some (most likely) overdramatic thoughts I've been churning around in my head seem so tragic.

It's hard to wax dark and philosophical about another impending birthday with Biff the beat-up penis perched on my shelf, assigned to his location by my grossed-out girlfriend.

I don't know why that's funny, but it is, and thank god.

The Other Big Easy

2009-10-16T10:39:00.004-04:00

The Puerto Rican mother in my law school class can't stop talking about how she went to NYC last weekend. It was an extended layover, but her and her husband got to spend a night there, in about 60-degree glorious fall weather.

"Everything just felt so easy," she told me. Funny, I thought this is the Big Easy.

She expanded: It's easy to be honest.

I told her I miss being rude, and the woman behind me, who has lived in Lousianna longer than I have, patted me on the shoulder in solidarity.

To an extent my classmate is right about NYC. There, when two people flip each other off, it's like a shared cynical smile, and for anyone who's experienced it, that can be heart warming. No need for "Excuse me ma'am," or idle talk about football games and the weather and how ya'll are doin'. New Yorkers get down to it: I'm annoyed with your presence, you're annoyed with mine, let's give that a brief nod and then go about our lives.

But that honesty comes at a price too. People you meet at bars won't even give you the illusion that they're interested in getting to know you. Strangers won't pick up your latte and the scattered pieces of your laptop when you careen down the subway stairs. And drag queens on 14th street will do an aggressive catwalk at you and call you a bitch because you're wearing a dress that looks good on you.

I guess the grass is greener and I'm missing having the freedom to be an unfettered a-hole, but I'm sure I'll get my fill over winter break. And then, who knows, I might discover little lies aren't so bad.

What A Year Does

2009-09-28T10:28:00.008-04:00

After the girlfriend drove me home from her house this morning, I had about 45 minutes left until I was due at my home office, so I abandoned my coffee in the fuzzy styrofoam cup and hit the bed ... hard. I woke up sweating, saw that I was supposed to have been working ... oh... an hour ago, and made a beeline for my air conditioner's "On" switch, which, incidentially, I'd just been dreaming about.

Had I been in NYC this morning, I would have dragged my AC unit back into the closet about two weeks ago.

Had I been in NYC this morning, I also wouldn't have been napping because I wouldn't have had smashing sex with my girlfriend last night.

A little over a year ago, I had no idea what was down here, except for an enthusiastically idealized vision of New Orleans as the Dixieland paradise. Whenever I was smacked by another oversized imitation Channel bag as I squeezed past a frenzied workaholic on the midtown subway, I'd envision myself in Big Easy Bliss.

And not just regular "oh, where I live is pretty cool" bliss, but what-the-Heaven's Gate-followers-must-have-been-told-the-afterlife-felt-like bliss.

All I had to do, I told myself, was drive a car south on that fateful morning and all my earthly (read: NYC) problems would melt away.

It took a year of living in Nirvana to watch all my original reasons for moving here go down the shitter -- they've got fake Channel bags here too.

I've now got new, mature, more-earthbound reasons:

-Law school in NYC would mean having to live in NJ and commuting on its transit system every day. (read: hell)

-I want an excuse to drive a six-cylinder taupe Buick and outfit it with ridiculous hubcaps.

-I can eat without a stomach ache, don't get panic attacks, and my hair isn't falling out anymore.

-I've escaped becoming one of those fanatic Insular New Yorkers who thinks the rest of the country is an expanse of strip malls and stupid people.

- There's no girlfriend like the one I've got.

- I get to feel cooler than everyone else when I walk out of a bar still sipping my drink.

Those Heavens Gate moments -- I still have them.

Like riding my bike underneath a row of trees whose branches stretch across four lanes of traffic, and I'm like " How do you even do that?" And the trees are like, "We just do, okay?"

And then my bike hits a pavement chasm and my basket flies off the handlebars into said traffic.

Here's to a year.

Fightin Words

2009-09-08T09:09:00.003-04:00

Hi again world.

"Fight until hell freezes over and when it does fight on top of the ice."

That's what some boxing coach used to say. I never knew him. He died sometime this month.

To me it doesn't so much apply to boxing as the way I look at my life, with all its trials, triumphs, worries and doubts, that all seem so vapid compared to SOME people. But isn't that always the case?

What did I have to fight through this weekend for example?

Round 1- the DMV
Round 2- emotional distress brought on by a resurfacing ex, with a dash of DMV.
Round 3- self doubt to self-frustration to self-examination
Round 4 - law school studying with a severely distracted mind and halo of cigar smoke.

And she comes out of it with a tinge of anxiety, a new car license, and a loving cup of coffee from the significant other.

Not too bad.

The boxing matches this weekend were monitored by a doctor with a violin. I doubt she'd play for me yet.

Doubt

2009-07-04T01:02:00.005-04:00

I just saw a movie about a nun who seemed so certain of something, but broke down in a sobbing, doubt-stricken mess at the end.

The same affliction has plagued me, off and on, and it's manifested itself in different brain-squeezing ways.

I think what the movie tried to say is: it's when you try, or pretend to be absolutely certain that doubt can be the most damaging.

I Very Much Disapprove of Turbulence

2009-06-18T09:49:00.003-04:00

The takeoff just sacred the beer buzz out of me.

Very high above the ground and my text message to Annie won’t send. Would it in first-class? Not unless I pay for a sky phone.

I haven’t seen New Orleans from above since my birthday. It still gives me butterflies, like it did that first time I left after a visit, looked down with sentimental tears welling up behind my sunglasses, and swore I’d live there some day.

Now, flying over lake Pontchartrian, part of the reason for one of “the greatest human tragedies,” I’m proud my house is down there somewhere -- as if my approval can somehow make it heal faster. As if I deserve a medal of bravery for living there the last eight months.

New Orleans helps you live an incredible life. It’s like you have one-up on the rest of the world on drinking, danger, suffering, laughing, freedom, and the absolutely ridiculous. But it’s only when you leave, the second that plane lifts off the runway even, that you realize it -- and feel either remorse, embarrassment, or elation.

I wonder what New York would have been like the last few months. I probably wouldn’t have broken my rib, but then, life’s not as sweet without some excruciating bodily pain every once in a while.

I'll Be Spooning Roaches for at Least Another Year

2009-05-20T10:44:00.003-04:00

I saw him there by the door, poised to wreak terror upon my soon-to-be-slumbering body. He tried to blend in with the wood floor, but the sickly reddish sheen of his wings gave him away.

The chase began when I sprayed him once with Raid, hoping the dose was caustic enough to penetrate his disgusting frame and fry his insides. I took my eyes off of him once, when he lunged from the curtain in my general direction. When I finished screaming like a little girl and cowering behind my French door, the bastard was gone.

This is New Orleans -- so are the grits with herbs and garlic, the afternoon deluges, the poison caterpillars, the toxic and delicious snowballs, the 13-year-olds with guns, that choking small-town feeling, delicious panama hats, jazz fest tourists, Southern conservatism, female pastors, The Mother In Law Lounge, and, of course, that girl with the curly hair.

I wouldn't say I wouldn't trade it for anything, I think I'm proud to call it home, I guess you can say there's no city like it -- but mainly, I'm still here, and ain't that something?

Am I Moving Back to NYC?

2009-04-05T23:20:00.003-04:00

Probably not, though you never can tell.

Situations Move Fast in the Big Easy.

2009-04-05T23:02:00.004-04:00

It's been a while.

So much can happen in a month or so. This city can push you every which way if you're not careful.

I was in my first rain storm the other night. This rain wasn't in sheets, it was in curtains - heavy velvet ones. I nonchalantly called a cab, not knowing I was lucky it would even show, and not thinking to roll my pants up to my knees before exiting the bar.

Sewers here are mere decoration. They hang out ironically as the waves of rainwater lap high above them reaching stoops and rolling over lawns.

I felt the waves slapping the bottom of the cab to the tune of my swearing driver as we gurgled past the hospital.

I was grumbling indignantly about the city's inability to come to grips with water when I saw a cop stroll out of the emergency room doors, foot poised to step off the curb, only to realize no curb existed.

He looked down, surveyed the hospital's brand-new lake, and walked back inside.

I smiled the rest of the way home.

The Next Morning

2009-02-25T10:08:00.003-05:00

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

2009-02-24T23:57:00.002-05:00

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

2009-02-13T14:11:00.002-05:00

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

2009-02-12T00:47:00.002-05:00

They're Coming to Pee on My House

2009-02-06T23:18:00.005-05:00

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

2009-02-02T23:45:00.005-05:00

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

2009-02-01T13:53:00.010-05:00

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.

Canal Street Calling

2009-01-28T00:41:00.005-05:00

Clarence called me tonight as I was walking across Canal Street. Every time I cross the first lane of cars, then the streetcar tracks, then the second lane, weaving in and out of the palm trees and celebratory tourists, I think of a newscast I saw a few months ago with a scared-shitless reporter trying to hold it down with the palms bending around him and Gustav grinning off the coast.

Anyway, Clarence called and I asked him why. He's a talented kid and I wanted to count him as a friend, maybe even give him a couch to crash on now and then after one of his Frenchmen street gigs. But three lies is enough.

I remind him that we had decided to part ways. He replies "I didn't know I couldn't call."

I assured him he can't.

"Man you don't want to hear from a brotha," he says.

No, I don't.

He quickly tells me how he and his bandmates are, once again, out on the street tonight because their car, once again, broke down and they can't get home.

I release a few expletives and tell him, in many more words, that he got himself into this situation, he damn well should get himself out.

He courteously hangs up.

I feel firm, defiant, ballsy. This is tough love, I tell myself. Then I remember he's only 19.

crap. I call and apologize, and no, we can't be friends right now, but, I tell him, "If you're ever REALLY in trouble, call me."

He says he will and hangs up.

Don't befriend the musicans, I console myself, even when they can play like motherfuckers.

Backseat Driver

2009-01-25T18:04:00.002-05:00

I’ve been looking, but I haven’t seen the streetcar named Desire. They do name their streetcars here. Maybe it's too obvious of a name for a streetcar, like naming your dog Fido.

For all the torment it puts me through waiting and dealing with the cow-eyed, cloying tourists, streetcars almost make up for it with their disgustingly charming wood paneling and equally disgusting tree-lined routes.

The price isn’t bad either- “a dollar and a quarter” per ride as opposed to New York’s $2.00 subway rides.

I’ve also discovered the natural streetcar order:

Tourists sit in the forward facing seats in the front and middle … or crowd near the front entrance in intoxicated bunches.

Locals sit in the middle and rear so as to avoid the tourist clumps and the spilled hand-grenades.

Die-hard locals, and every person in a restaurant uniform I’ve seen, sit in the far back, where the seats look like the benches in a subway.

For the particularly saucy locals and the occasional intrepid (or stupendously drunk) tourist, there is the rear seat, a padded swivel chair the conductor sits in when the car is going in the opposite direction.

This seat is mine. I like to put my feet up on the sill and show everyone how much cooler I am. Then I scowl at all the people in cars behind me.

Bringin’ the New York flava.

My Professional Night

2009-01-21T23:41:00.006-05:00

I went to an inauguration "Gala" last night not knowing what Gala means. I was just feeling celebratory.

This was my first formal-esque event in New Orleans. It was sponsored by a group for young professionals that I'm a part of and some legal society.

There were about 15 white people in the place, myself and my friend Jamie included. This was wonderful until it was the end of the night and nobody beside my friend the bartender:

approached/and,or/said hello to me. I'm not sure if this is so much a problem of races being scared of eachother as the fact that it was a "professional" event, meaning it might have been inappropriate to say "How you doin?"

"The news" as everyone called Channel 6, came in the beginning of the night and people of all races scrambled to be in front of the camera when they turned it on, shivering on the drafty dance floor in their stilettos and martini breath.

And I saw a more Blackberried and cloying networking orgy than I have ever seen at a New York press schmooze.

Jamie turns to me as we observe this from the balcony and says,"It looks like they're all trying to be someone."

Gymnasty

2009-01-19T22:17:00.004-05:00

One of my new goals is to be able to do a split. I can get closer to the ground than this, but it's impossible to photograph without pulling my groin.

To train myself, I wash dishes with one leg up next to me on the sink. It makes me feel sexier as I scratch my drool and crusty yogurt off plates.

I have also started hula hooping using some instructional YouTube videos. At first I was skeptical about YouTube as a teacher, but it taught me how to do the breast stroke last summer, and now I can "hoop" around my waste and around my hand like a lasso, as depicted in this money shot below.

I have decapitated a plant and chipped a lamp from mess-ups. It goes great with a glass or two of wine.

2009-01-16T22:24:00.003-05:00

Still no batteries for my camera because I am forgetful. Here is a recycled photo of my gym. I was there an hour ago, sparring with my friend.

It's funny what happens when two girls get in the ring and box. All the males in the place start hitting their bags harder, turn their treadmills up a notch, or yell juvenile things like "Get her, beat her up."

No matter. I just found something just beyond the reaches of orgasm in a piece of dark Italian chocolate.

I'm staying home tonight.

Your Friendly, Bad-Ass Neighborhood Plants

2009-01-14T22:51:00.004-05:00

To get to my gym, I have to lug my gym bag down a long stretch of road called Napoleon. At night and when it's chilly, that road is the worst part of my aggravatingly long trip to the gym and I hold my stun gun especially tight. During the day, it's usually bright, breezy, and lined with cool alien plants like these.

Maybe one afternoon when I'm feeling particularly stroppy, I'll pop one of the blue spheres into my mouth to see what it tastes like. If I make it to the street car, it's not poisonous. If I'm found face-down foaming onto my gym bag, it probably is.

We're Going To Try Something

2009-01-13T22:48:00.003-05:00

My good friend Juliet and I are going to each take a photo a day and write something about it. I took a few tonight and then my camera died.

If I get batteries tomorrow, this will happen.

I've read that when you move somewhere new, you're more prone to hypochondria. Right now I can think of a million reasons my eyeballs are hurting and I'm dizzy. They're all icky. Common cold, common cold, common cold ....

Anyway, here is a photo to sub for the one I couldn't take tonight:

I took it on Juliet and my vacation. It's in City Park. To get there, you have to take the street car all the way uptown. Along the way, the ghetto gets worse and worse and then suddenly the abandoned Mardi Gras shops and cheap hotels come to a stop, you go through a few brief blocks of quaint houses and grass knolls, and the last stop is this park that looks like it's some alien wonderland.

It used to be a plantation. The trees, judging by their monstrous size, were around before the plantations were built -- when it was still all swamp and mosquitoes and alligators that ate the occasional visitor.

Still Finessing the Self-Date

2009-01-08T00:08:00.006-05:00

The sociology of going to see the Soul Rebels alone:

Do not attempt if you don't have a cell phone on you which you can whip out in moments of severe awkwardness to prove to any who may be watching that you have friends out there ... somewhere.

But even the cellphone can't help you after about an hour.

When you buy your first drink, the bartender assumes you're just throwing down one and waiting for your best freind or lover. When you order drink four, still alone, she gets it. The fifth one is served up with a crushing pity-discount: "This one's half price, honey."

By drink three I figured the white kids on the dance floor were all a little more drunk than I was, and I was bout to show them what's up when I was hampered by the third nut-job psychologist that I've met down here, who introduced himself by saying I look European. He looked like a neo-nazi and tried to slide his arm from my shoulders to somewhere below my waste in one fell swoop.

This was too much for my awkwardness threshold and I threw on my parka to bike home through the rain.

Cry for me.

Somewhere in All This, a Theory Develops

2009-01-02T11:46:00.004-05:00

It's good to work hard, pour your brain and sweat into your job, have a productive and robust vision for the future, etc.

New York is an excellent venue for this mindset. New York is a career hound's city.

But on my NYC weekends I always felt empty. Heck, I felt empty anytime I wasn't working.

It's also good to realize that other than work, there's REAL life. You know, what you experience when not slaving away.

New Orleans specializes in living.

I'm here, I think, because I needed to develop my living career. I'm just starting to beef up my resume.

The hardest part so far: retaining some version of the NYC work ethic so I can keep my job, while convincing myself that it's okay to not give a damn from time to time.

The other hardest part: keeping my distance from the enticingly cheap booze everywhere.

A Wedding Awaits - For Better or Worse

2008-12-18T13:12:00.001-05:00

(Written on 12/12/2008)

It’s my birthday and I’m sitting at Gate D2 waiting for my tin-can to roll in. If the plane goes down, I’ll have lived exactly 26 years – well, probably not to the minute.

My mother didn’t think that was funny. My sister made fun of me for trying to be profound. It would make one local news reporter very happy – front-page, sob-story material.

Airports aren’t so bad; this has to be the most relaxed one I’ve ever been in. All the restaurants serve red beans and rice and Jambalaya, although they’re a sad and expensive reproduction of what you get when you take a taxi 20 minutes south into the Big Easy proper.

Last year on my birthday I think I worked and then went out to a local wine bar with family, friends, and my then-new, brash, Australian housemate (when I still liked her).

After I went to my boxing teacher’s house and watched a match as his girlfriend glared a hole into the front of my head.

This year I took a morning jog down Elysian Fields, which turned into aerobics as I tried to dodge my way around all the dog shit on the ground, I took a $35 taxi ride to the airport (my taxi driver told me that you could take the highway that we were on all the way to Los Angeles), and I paid $12 for a salad which annoyed me more than it should have.

Not bad so far. I’ve come a long way in a year.

More from my taxi driver: If you put salt in your beer during these choking summers that everyone keeps warning me about, you’ll sweat your beer out faster and you won’t be as dehydrated. Plus, it allegedly makes the beer taste better. He wondered what I’ll drink this weekend in Vermont to stay warm. I do too.

The Remanants Cling On

2008-12-11T10:30:00.004-05:00

I was sitting in the front seat of my boxing teacher's truck driving back from my boxing lesson last night.

I love learning boxing from him (he's a great teacher and loves to make fun of me) and I love his stories and insights.

I think he's becoming one of my favorite people here.

So we are having yet another discussion about race and he notices that there's been a cop car in front of us for a few miles, going just the right speed to stay a few feet in front of the truck.

"You know, he just might pull me over and ask me what I'm doing with this white girl," says my teacher.

I laughed and thought he was joking.

I should have known better, this is New Orleans, where sarcasm stems from reality more often than anywhere else.

Thanks Ana and Hank

2008-12-09T14:07:00.005-05:00

Ana Dane, once again, reminds me of New York's filth, in a blog post discussing tea nonetheless.

When you are frustrated with people, listen to the song, "I'd Love to Knock The Hell Out of You," by Hank Williams Jr.

It will satisfy your urge to knock the hell out of someone without landing you in jail. A beautiful thing.

My Thoughts Exactly

2008-12-07T20:13:00.001-05:00

Ways to Show You've Got

2008-12-07T18:15:00.003-05:00

Here's the New Orleans Guide to proving you're privileged, tailored to your specific lifestyle:

Young businessman: Buy two cars -- a sensible one to go to work and a flashy piece of sports machinery to park outside of clubs on the weekend.

Middle-aged businessman: Join a cheap gym and take every opportunity to tell the young, impressionable women at the gym what you do, and, by implication, how big your paycheck is.

Old Businessman: Drive around in your convertible with the top down. If it's cold, suck it up -- do this until the temperature drops below 40. Whenever possible, dangle a cigar lazily out of the side of your mouth.

Musician (successful): Mention your label and how supportive it is as much as possible and especially when in conversation with a female. (Keeps the label and your sex-drive happy.) Talk a lot about all the leisure activities you can partake in while the squares work 9-5.

Rapper: Simple. Get a gold grill installed on your front teeth. Same for your car.

College Student: Live in a part of town that's expensive, but to the naked eye, passes as bohemian. Only mention that your father owns the three blocks you live on to "certain" people. Buy sweatshirts with your law school's name on them in five colors, but avoid mentioning your parents are paying your tuition.

This Bears Repeating ...

2008-10-30T12:20:00.002-04:00

This is very funny and very relevant to N.O.

Almost Like New York, But Not

2008-10-23T09:31:00.000-04:00

Couldn't sleep last night. Some asshole was playing the violin outside my window.

Heavier Than The Humidity

2008-10-12T22:00:00.008-04:00

A new friend said there's this constant violent tension here: "You can feel it in the air."

It's talked about over beers and in cafes -- though more so by angsty newcomers; it's written about clinically in the Times Picayune; and it's aftershocks are mourned with second-lines and memorial concerts.

New York had a jangled, nervous twitch, but a feeling of motion. New Orleans has the same nervousness, but it's stagnant, permanent, and more serious.

This place's surreal beauty works as Xanax to the anxiety. (Mint Juleps and grits work too.) But, like Xanax, it only treats the symptoms.

But just as the feeling in the air is heaver, the fun I have and the people I connect with feel like small, brave victories.

You Interrupted My Song For That?

2008-10-09T12:26:00.008-04:00

St. James James Infirmary is one of the most covered songs down here and my favorite. It's about a guy that sees his girl dead and laid out in the morgue.

My favorite lyric : "Let her go, let her go, God bless her, wherever she may be. She can look this wide world over, but she'll never find a man like me."

So the three-piece jazz group was wailing this out to an audience of about 9, when my listening was interrupted by a drunk guy who is a friend of Diana's.

He shook my hand and thanked me, vigorously and repeatedly, for moving to New Orleans. I mumbled "no problem" or something equally awkward.

"My girlfriend (he said it just as matter-of-factly as he had thanked me) just got pushed down in front of her apartment."

Then he told me again that he was drunk and to be careful.

They did a Screamin' Jay Hawkins cover next, complete with expert manic laughter. We all joined in.

She's the Raid to My Nostalgia

2008-10-08T09:42:00.002-04:00

In my previous post I admitted to some NYC subway nostalgia. Ana Dane has offered me a cure:

"oh, dear. look, all i can recommend: take a plastic bag. fill it with those sweaty gym clothes, still steaming, then take a piss on them. let the bag sit in the sun for two days, then empty it out, and cut an air hole and let it sit loosely over your head for an hour while you stand next to a jackhammer on one side, and a crying infant on the other. throw away $4 from your wallet at the end.

if that doesn't make you feel a tiny bit less nostalgic, i don't know what will."

What Happens When You're Lonely

2008-10-05T23:40:00.005-04:00

-You buy an overpriced lamp.

-You're glad to come home to said overpriced lamp.

-You have coffee with people you find unsettling and narcissistic.

-You begin thinking of people as potential acquaintances or not worth the conversation.

-You spend too much time on the stationary bike at the gym.

-You get too upset when hipsters at bars stare at you.

-You become too diligent with your dishes.

But worst:

You get nostalgic about the subway when you find an old Metro card in your wallet.

I Don't Like This City's Obits

2008-10-05T20:45:00.009-04:00

When someone dies here, they have a second-line parade. People dance/march with a brass band to the funeral.

I think their white hearses put Cadillacs to shame, but it's a matter of taste.

On my first Saturday here, my friend Diana said, matter-of-factly, that she was going to a second-line for a girl from our neighborhood who had been murdered.

Diana wasn't sure how she'd been killed, but she said she probably lived in the a higher-crime area of our neighborhood. I wondered where, exactly, this high and low-crime line is.

Last night I stopped in at a cafe to get some of the strong coffee I needed and an idealized-hippy-punk chick handed me a flier about a show that night to benefit the family of a girl that got shot.

"Oh they had a second-line for her today," I said.

"No, that was someone else," she replied.

I looked at the flier with the murdered girl's photo on it. It looked too familiar, like something off of Myspace. The flier named the cross-streets where she was found with a bullet in her head. I didn't know the streets, or what crime lines they crossed.

Later I showed Diana the flier. "She shouldn't have been in that area," was all she said.

The Times-Picayune police blotter lists all the crimes that happened the previous day. Most are robberies (house) and assault (not ending in murder).

The next page is the obituaries. A third of today's deaths were people below 35 (no cause of death listed). I'd feel more comfortable if they were all above 60.

I've never read New York's crime reports, so I can't compare. I've also never assessed how close to my home a murder occurred.

Here are the cities with the highest murder rates (from 2007), per the FBI:

1. Gary, IN – 73 (pop. 97,048)
2. Richmond, CA – 46 (pop. 102,471)
3. Baltimore, MD – 45 (pop. 624,237)
4. Detroit, MI – 44 (pop. 860,971)
5. St. Louis, MO – 40 (pop. 348,197)
6. Birmingham, AL – 38 (pop. 227,686)
7. JP/NOLA – 38 (pop. 683,000)
8. Newark, NJ – 37 (pop. 280,158)
9. Baton Rouge – 31 (pop. 228,446)
10. Oakland, CA – 30 (pop. 396,541)

Diana reads the crime blotter every morning. I wonder how many New Orleaneans do.

Sweet Sweat

2008-10-03T09:49:00.010-04:00

I've been able to put aside the mind-fuck that is relocation twice since Sunday.

One: having Cajun food with my parents at a place called Crocs.

Two: Peddling on a stationary bike from the 1980's in a balmy gym with a red lit-up sign flashing "boxing" over the door outside.

Mike, the owner, is a New Yorker and a New Orleanean all in one. Sure the rafters shake when I hit the bag and we all have to share one shower, but that makes it all the sweeter.

Thank you Freret Street Gym.

The gym sits just on the border of where I'm not supposed to go. I went and got Gatorade from a convenience store on the "wrong side of the line" -- the owner of the store was a Mexican woman who asked me about my workout and called me sweetie.

Some kids said hi to me on the walk back. Mike was waiting for me with a concerned look.

Peddling my bike through the French Quarter on my way back, I was almost sideswiped by what looked like a well-fed gentleman in a sports car.

The Big ... Sort of, Maybe, Not Sure Yet, Easy?

2008-10-02T23:51:00.011-04:00

Your biggest aspirations never turn out exactly how you think they will. I'm taking that with me from now on.

Culture shock is real and it creeps up on you -- so do dashes of stinging loneliness, even though I mainly communicated with my friends via G-chat in New York as well.

Here is some good and bad New Orleans at first glance:

-It's no lie that you don't want to make a wrong turn, but I have yet to see if the danger is exaggeration. I don't like taking people's word, but don't want to find out the hard way.

-The cockroaches are huge and nasty, but they're flushable. You often, I've learned, have to flush twice.

-Nobody seems to get pissed off in traffic. There's a lot of, I wouldn't call it traffic ... slow-moving vehicles creating this sort of lava flow with the occasional streetcar clot.

-Ass kicking music and bars of the same caliber are everywhere. When you want to work or stay healthy, that's a downside. It's becoming like a game to me -- can I peddle past all the seductive bars and brass bands on my way to the gym? Victory was mine today.

-Yes, this city has "groups." E.g.: Rich, poor, black, white, Mexican, people who were born and raised here, people who are "not from around here," etc. This gets me; I hate groups. I'm battling not to be in one.

- Even the tomato soup at a tourist-trap cafe is stunning.

-People don't walk around on cell phones -- I'm the only asshole that does.

-You can jump into conversations easily, but it's not rude to just cut out of one and leave. This is probably a survival instinct -- otherwise New Orleans would be a 24-hour conversation.

If I Have to Work, It Might As Well Be in Paradise

2008-09-29T11:23:00.003-04:00

Somewhere around Mississippi I think my brain went to sleep.

I've cried from happiness three times in my life. Crossing Lake Pontchartrain and entering New Orleans was my third.

The color of my new house (and this morning's chicory coffee) woke me up a little.

Bye Bye New York, Be Good

2008-09-26T08:34:00.003-04:00

It's a soppy, windy, dark New York morning. Everyone in the subways is miserable. The exception, for once, is me, because in New Orleans today, it's 83 degrees with clear skies.

I couldn't think of a more perfect send-off.

Small Shorts Don't Squeeze Your Finances, Or Another Reason Why I'm Ready For N.O.

2008-09-13T18:39:00.005-04:00

The shorts turned out to be two dollars. I had to look around to double check that I was indeed in the East Village.

The drag queen who took my money told me: "You know, honey, they come in bigger sizes as well."

Her comment wasn't offensive, as the shorts I had selected were meant for a toddler. "Oh I like them tight," I told her, not mentioning that they'd be the crown jewel of my gogo dancing outfit later tonight.

She smiled affectionately and handed me the bag.

Sometimes New York still has a kick to it. But it's more in dashes, like this one.

Five minutes later at a cafe, with a book on "the precarious financial lives of American families," I watched people dragging shopping bags past the window, and more shopping bags, and people outside of expensive restaurants ashing trendy cigarettes, and the occasional sports car pulling up to get attention.

Maybe more people have stable jobs than my book suggests, I pondered. How else can they afford to live in an impossibly expensive city and still be able to shop for nick knacks at Pottery Barn on the weekends?

Then the guy next to me tells an attentive girl about his newest freelance gig that won't pay that much, and how he's going to see his astrologer this afternoon.

Okay, so everyone here is living on credit.

Courtesy of Ayn Rand

2008-09-09T23:04:00.001-04:00

You never see confident people reading self-help books.

These May Just Be The Lunatics I'm Looking For

2008-09-09T21:34:00.006-04:00

At my job today, I posted a "bleg" (a blog post asking readers for advice on something) about my move to New Orleans.

I was expecting either a flood of crime statistics and essays on how global warming will increase hurricane frequency, or some sensible but cautious advice mixed with the former.

Instead, the comments built a testament to New Orleans that almost matched my wild (slightly "enhanced") rantings to my friends about it. They even got into prose:

On your first morning there, get up early. Go down to Cafe Du Monde, order a cafe au lait and one order, to go - this will cost you about four bucks and net you a cup of strong, milky coffee laced with chicory and a bag containing three beignet and a lot of icing sugar.

Walk away from the street, toward the Moonwalk, but over it, not along it - keep following the paved path back toward the river. Keep the statue of what’s-his-name at your back. When you’ve gone far enough, you’ll see a set of railroad-tie stairs that lead straight down into the Missisippi. Late at night it’s often well populated by sex workers and runaways, in the early morning it’s usually empty and, regardless of your company, quite peaceful.

Uncover your coffee, and use the icing sugar in the bag to sweeten it. Drink it slowly. Eat two of your beignet. Watch the river hurry past to meet the ocean. Listen to the city wake up 100 yeards behind you and yet so muffled it could be last year.

When the coffee and two beignet are gone, roll up the bag containing the last one. Scrawl ‘Enjoy’ on it, and leave it on the steps for when the thrown-out/took-off queer boys roll out from their temporary night’s digs looking for a breeze and a smoke. Go back home to unpack. Be glad to be in New Orleans.

— Posted by S. Bear Bergman

Of course, there were the occasional killjoys:

As a geologist, I gotta say that the single most important thing a new New Orleanean should know is that the ground under the city gets further away from sea level every year. I love New Orleans as a city, but in the medium-term (and definitely the long-term), it’s not a sustainable location unless you want levees that are four stories tall. Until it floods, enjoy it!

— Posted by Callan Bentley

Also plentiful were phrases like, "gets into your blood," and "you'll never leave," which would creep me out in any other context.

Yet I still can't completely believe in the existence of a whole city of people detached from the American norm -- hopefully, it's just because I've been walking around in Chelsea too much.

I also got a lot of congratulations, like I won something.

I'm jumping up and down, to be sure, but no premature ecstatic squeals until I see for myself what's behind Door Number 1.

The Straw In My Guinness Doesn't Bother Him

2008-09-07T23:42:00.003-04:00

In a city where the music is rarely honest anymore, my Irish bartender at The Queys -- the only New York bartender I can truly call my own -- means it.

There's Something to Astoria's Square Faces and Beady Eyes

2008-09-07T18:04:00.009-04:00

After some cajoling, I got each of my friends to show me their sex faces -- some obviously more authentic than others.

Really Keren?

What does the way you portray your sex face say about you? Probably something, but the internet isn't rich in that sort of information.

I have noticed that the men chasing the short skirted D&G girls around Astoria's Euro-club circuit tend to have the same square features, beady eyes and leathery skin common to the weight-lifting section of my gym.

A study I just found when looking for sex face information confirmed that there's a pattern here:

It found that men with squarer jaws, larger noses, and smaller eyes tend to opt more for casual flings, whereas "casual women" have more oval faces, larger eyes, and smaller foreheads. In short, the uglier men are more "casual" but the uglier women are more into commitment.

Some more obvious conclusions:

"The study also found that men and women are looking for opposite things when it comes to relationships, with men seeking women who are open to casual or short-term flings while women look for potential mates."

Subway Stairs Were Never So Condescending

2008-09-03T23:02:00.000-04:00

I don't like sports fans, (especially the obese ones) mostly because they're living vicariously.

I box. Boxing isn't a sport -- it's my nervous and sexual tensions mixed with a strange psychology experiment and flung into a ring. Even while panting through my third mile every morning, I feel no bond with my athletic brethren (only envy for their intimidating calf muscles).

Right about when the Olympics began, my infinite stubbornness caused me to run my right leg into the ground and I was sentenced to prescription Motrin and the Chelsea Pool.

As I was wobbling home on swimmers' legs last week, a sudden respect for Usain Bolt, the running sensation I had been forced to read about all day, washed over me.

His face in a Times photo I saw earlier oozed an enormous amount of body and willpower combined in just the right way.

For a second I saw the athletes of the word standing in the sun, exalted in their victory over mind and muscle. Then a sharp pain in my bum knee snapped me out of it (and I got scared that my next move would be to grab a Coors Light and start yelling at the nearest flat screen TV.)

Bolt doesn't need anyone else to join his glory party. I don't want a party either -- just the ability to right-hook a bag again.

There’s the Real World and Then There Are Near-Misses, Histories Repeating, and Unprecedented Events

2008-09-02T23:05:00.011-04:00

After a long Monday of searching meteoriolgist’s facial expressions and then relief over holding levees, I settled into bed with Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and read:

“If you make people perform a noble duty, it bores them. … If you make them indulge themselves it shames them. But combine the two – and you’ve got them.”

Even after New Orleans’s “dodging of the bullet” was announced by the 20th news outlet, the Katrina parallels were still being deployed en masse.

How much was it REALLY almost Katrina? The non-meteorological world may never know.

But I do know that giving a New Orleanean sleeping in a gas station in northern Lousiana a hasty (and sloppy) Katrina comparison is the equivalent of telling a cancer survivor that the mole on his back looks exactly like that malignant one that led to all the chemo last year.

Per Rand’s observation, past tragedies work wonders to sex up positive, boring news. My point is not so much that it's cruel and tactless (which it is), but that it doesn’t stand out.

It's just part of a barrage of unprecedented but spineless clichés that I’ve allegedly never seen anything like.

Here's a sampling:

(The AP)

Gustav to test lessons of Katrina (CNN Money)
Hospitals use lessons from Katrina to prep for Gustav (CNN.com)
A Prophet of Katrina’s Wrath Returns to His Storm Vigil (The New York Times)
Is Gustav Katrina the Second? (Bellaciao, France)
Evacuees compare Gustav, Katrina ordeals (USA Today)

New York Can Always Make You Smile

2008-08-31T12:28:00.007-04:00

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

Please Tell Me You're Only Sensationalizing

2008-08-31T11:05:00.006-04:00

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.

2008-08-31T10:32:00.008-04:00

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

2008-08-19T23:37:00.005-04:00

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

2008-08-13T08:35:00.010-04:00

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

2008-08-11T23:15:00.004-04:00

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.