Doubt

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

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

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?

Probably not, though you never can tell.

Situations Move Fast in the Big Easy.

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.