Humdinger

It was, to speak lightly, the greatest party of the decade... a Mardi Gras to remember.

Some photos:

a Krewe float

mardi gras rushing

bourbon/babylon

Wild, drug-fueled, endlessly enjoyable-- I was awake for almost six days straight, working 16-18 hours a day.  Making endless amounts of money, drinking endless amounts of booze, popping the pills, doing the best cocaine I've ever stumbled across.  

Whenever I think of Mardi Gras, this is the one I'll ponder upon-- shuffling through the hazy memories like playing cards, ruminating on them, smiling about them.  My final days in New Orleans were some of the best of my life...despite the events to come.

Some Girls:

Record Lows

For the past three weeks, our house on Ithaca street has been without any warmth.  My roommate Jeana neglected to pay the gas bill, and, as a result, the gas was turned off.  That's not, I suppose, a big deal... shit happens, and I myself have been broke and without cash for necessities at times as well.  So there is no central heat, no hot water and no way to use the oven or range or dryer.  We get by without these things-- she goes to her family who conveniently live nearby and I... cope accordingly.  This whole situation is reportedly going to be rectified on Friday, at which time the past due notices will be paid and the gas will be returned.

With that healthy dose of background information doled out, now I get down to the point:  this morning, when I awoke, it was the coldest yet it's been inside the house.  The useless thermostat read 55.  I don't know what the temperature was outside; inside, it has since risen steadily to 60. Having no reason to go outside today, I haven't.  I slept until three in the afternoon because it was a way to kill the time.  I've stayed mostly in my bedroom where a space heater noisily and diligently heats the space.  I've tottered around the house a bit in a hoodie and layers.  I feel mildly unwell,  with a runny nose and a cough, but nothing that aggressively puts upon my day; anyway, it's become standard.  I've been that way for two and a half weeks. 

Thankfully we live in New Orleans, where the weather is generally agreeable.  It's not nearly as cold here as it is in, say, Chicago, or Missoula, or Anchorage.  Considering I'll be arriving in Anchorage towards the end of their winter, where, I've been helpfully informed, "the temperature generally stays above freezing in the daylight", I realize I need to buy some warmer winter clothes, something I've never really had to do because I've mostly lived in warmer southern climates.  I remember visiting Chicago in March and being generally unhappy about the snow and the cold.  At least I can look forward to the theoretical hum of a heater inside my cabin at Denali.

Suicide Tuesday

I find myself, here on this Suicide Tuesday, alive... vaguely.  Not dead, not permanently maimed, not mindlessly vacant and wandering the streets panhandling for change and wrestling dogs for scraps like a psychotic.  My eyesight is almost entirely back to normal.  I have, more than once, had the energy to get out of bed.  I had the urge to eat something-- not much, but baby steps, of course.  I'm yet to be able to gain an erection, but I'm sure that skill will return in time, and besides... I don't have the energy for one now anyway.  Yes, it was quite a weekend.

I was feeling whimsical after work on Saturday, when we all headed deliriously over to Amps with giant styrofoam letters left at the bar from the private birthday party we had just finished hosting.  I had little interest in spending my hard earned money on a drug I was tired of, as I am fairly tired of cocaine, and instead tried a little harder and got four hits of ecstasy for the same price.  Yay.

So, the rest of the night and most of the morning was spent rolling about the French Quarter.  My initial instincts had been to hookup, but that proved impossible in my attention-deficit state, coupled with the fact that it was about 8am.  Noonish, I went by the bar to retrieve a bag I had left the night before, made my self a triple and wandered out to catch the bus back to Meitaire. 

None of this is the problem, really.  In fact, I was very happy throughout the previously mentioned adventures, as MDMA is wont to make someone be.  In fact, throughout my experimentation, X is definitely my favorite illicit substance.  It's just so overwhelming yet clear.  So complete and intoxicating and still something one can somewhat function on and be out in something similar to a version of public.  The problems began when I got home, wasn't the least bit sleepy, was still rolling a bit, and started drinking on an empty stomach.

I drank all day Sunday.  Jeana got home and took me out to a bar for a drink or two after she got off work.  I came home and continued drinking.  I passed out sometime around 3 in the bathroom.  Sometime around 5 I relocated to my bed.  I woke up around noon (yes, still rolling a bit) and fixed myself a bloody mary, followed by a screwdriver.  This is, I will admit, where awkward decisions were made on my part.  Some people may know that certain kinds of cough syrup and most types of allergy pills will, when taken in unrecommended quantities will make you pleasantly (or unpleasantly, depending on your disposition) wrecked.  So, going to CVS to procure these drugs were not a good idea.  Taking an entire bottle and box of both substances whilst still on a bit of a roll and steadily consuming vast amounts of alcohol was a stupendously bad idea.  I did, however, have quite a time while I could both stand and stay awake.  I passed out in the vicinity of 11(pm) on Monday and awoke about 6(pm) on Tuesday.  Most of the preceding was written on Wednesday.

So, yes, preach if you must... I guess I could have died and that it is a grand miracle that I'm alive.  I did, however, have buckets and buckets of fun.  As I'm conscience to write this, I say even trade.

Orpheus

I slid into work just before midnight, already well lubricated from the Brad Paisley concert, and poured myself a triple Jack and Coke.  There was a decent crowd, I went about my work, stocking, refilling, cleaning.  It was Latin Party-- the promoter arrived, the place filled up to capacity within fifteen minutes like a tidal wave overtaking a coastal town. 

Three bartenders scrambling to serve 100 people, one barback scrambling to keep from running out of necessities, unable to get to the store rooms, unable to move through the packed club.

...alerted security to the old homeless man dancing for change inside the VIP after his 'audience' made clear they wished her were no longer there.  It was cold outside-- he didn't want to go.

...ran out of ice, made several trips down to the corner store, dragging back bag after bag or ice, arriving only to have to go again almost immediately. 

...saw the girls screaming and bickering on the side walk, saw the unconscious girl dragged to the chair.

The police came shortly after to deal with the screaming girls, who had stopped their screaming and supplemented it with brawling.  Three cop cars, their lights a fine accompaniment to the house music blasting inside.  Upon entering the lobby, the cops discovered the OD in the chair, called an ambulance to take her away.  Official club position is that she drank too much... I've seen plenty of drunk people, none whose eyes rolled back like that.  Trying to move the girl angered her male companion-- he attacked the police officers and was promptly arrested.

Three strikes, you're out.  Tired of this nonsense, the NOPD shut down the Ohm Lounge at 3am, cleared everyone out, robbed us of at least another $1000 in tips.  The employees promptly went to @ to bemoan their misfortune.

"Chaos, baby.  Bang your head on that."

Time Well Wasted

It was Jeana's birthday, and, in celebration, we went to the Paisley Party tour held at the New Orleans Arena.  

Opening act was Dierks Bentley, giving off the impression of trying to hard to be affable and 'down-home' as he sang all his hits, most of which I like very much.  Was much the change (not necessarily  for the better) from the show he did five years ago at Tipitina's where, by the end of the evening, so drunken was he that the audience sing along was all that could get him through 'What Was I Thinking'.

Followed up by Brad Paisley, guitar virtuoso and probably the most viable artist in country music (great singer, affecting songwriter, astounding musician) singing most of his most recent and popular songs (could have used some 'All I Wanted Was A Car' or 'Time Well Wasted', Brad...).  Said wonderful things about New Orleans, attempted to sing 'City of New Orleans' but was very honest about clearly not knowing the words... promised to learn it next time, sang 'When the Saints Go Marching In' instead.

Anyway, Brad's AV unit deserves an award of some kind, as their displays were breathtaking and at times threatened to overshadow the performer.  Pre-recorded cameos by Taylor Swift, Dierks Bentley, Keith Urban and B.B. King were entertaining.  Pre-recorded cameo by Alison Krauss was not, because my enthusiasm that she's really on the stage!! made me look quite foolish when she turned out to be a video projection.

In all, a fine show.  Drank plenty of Jack Daniel's, felt warm and fuzzy.  These are not my personal photos, but instead belong to Russo-- I forgot my camera.

The American Dream

I have seen the dewey fruition of the American Dream-- the grand, glowing catharsis that is all that this country wishes to be and the perfect example of our can-do spirit.  I have been there, and you can go there, too.  This is Laughlin, Nevada.  But let's be precise:  American Dream is not in Laughlin, it is Laughlin, perched in neon splendor upon the Colorado River.  

But this post is not about Laughlin and why it is the American Dream-- that post will have to wait until I perhaps visit there again (and, great God, how I want to visit that mystical place again).  No, this post is about something I saw today, something I experienced first-hand, fully-immersed in the experience but always the constant outside observer.  Today I saw not the American Dream, but the clawing, fighting, brutal struggle to achieve it, against all odds, through hellish circumstance, desperate attempts to plant personal flags in the fertile soil of our national mythology.

I went with my friend and roommate to Delgado Community College to keep company while she registered for the upcoming semester under the assumption it would take 30 or so minutes.  It did not-- it took hours.  First we stood in a long line a swelteringly hot room-- these people directed us to another line, even longer, located in a hallway.  Upon reaching the front of the hallway line, we were told there was a problem, we could not be helped by these people; to go stand back in the original line.  We stood there (it was shorter this time), and upon reaching the front, were directed to a computer where we filled out some online forms.  Then we went back to the line, stood in it again for some time, and at the front were handed an index card with the number 26.  There were 100 index cards potentially awaiting circulation-- as we tried to find a seat they called number 93.  Thus queued, we waited in the sweltering hot room for one tired woman to process the 32 people ahead of us.

As not a post about Laughlin, Nevada this is also not a post about inefficieny, but instead about the people I witnessed and watched as I waited in these lines.  Everyone seemed to be undergoing similar troubles, hopping about between these long lines and waiting in this oppressively hot room, and yet... the grumbling was almost non-existant.  Yes, of course, there was some overheard here and there in snatches of cellphone conversations and drifting from our own mouths, but over-all... none.

Here were people waiting patiently in this glorious unpleasantness to better themselves, and damn grateful for the opportunity.  Here were people struggling to gain the rights to a piece of paper that would allow them the wages necessary to live in their houses, to drive their cars, to pay for the daycares for the children they were forced to bring with them on this particular day.  Here were people looking to learn a trade in plumbing or welding, to become a teacher, to become a nurse; to learn actual skills apart from the useless liberal arts, things more important than English literature or film studies.

So I watched these people standing in lines attempting to do what, as Americans, we are trained to do.  To improve ourselves, to reach for the stars, to do better in this life than our parents ever had the opportunity to do.  Isn't that the American dream.

A close friend of mine told me some years ago that she could explain the ills of our generation, and I think she made quite an argument.  Modern American society has always been about outdoing our parents, about being richer and more successful than they ever could, yet, our parents reached the pinnacle.  It's impossible now to do better than the parents that run the country, to be more successful or richer than the partners, CEO, politicians who form the upper-middle class that define America.  They've tapped out, leaving their children awash at liberal arts colleges without point or purpose, lethargic and broken.

And I agree with that, for the stereotypical America about which it's written.  But as for the real America?  The one that doesn't run the country but keeps it running?  It is far from the truth.  There is still room for betterment and improvement.  The American dream still exists for the average American, who, as privelage washes down from the upper classes and out amongst the general population, is finally getting a chance.

On the Canal Line

Every Friday and Saturday I walk down to Veterans Memorial Boulevard and wait for the bus that comes at 8pm.  I board the bus and am sometimes the only white face.  After 20 or so minutes we arrive at the cemeteries at the base of Canal Boulevard in Orleans Parish where I wait for the Canal Street Car to come and take me into downtown New Orleans.  When it arrives I am never the only white face, although sometimes the only white face with anywhere to actually go.

The Canal Line was completed after Hurricane Katrina and comes with a unique line of new red cars.  Occasionally one of the green cars traditional to the St. Charles line will be used on this route, and vice versa, but the red and green cars both have their usual niches.  I prefer the green cars-- the red cars have been made wheel chair accessible at the expense of aesthetics (although I suppose practicality is more important than beauty), and their seating arrangement, in turn, resembles more a usual city bus than a trolley. 

None of this is really the point-- instead, over the past two weeks I have seen two (2) things on this car that have moved me.  As follows:

An elderly black man, worn and withered by age, boarded the trolley and sat on the bench-style seats near the front.  Several stops later another, much younger black man boarded with his son, around three or four.  They were standing in the front of the trolley, next to the elderly man, paying the fare, when the car started with a jolt.  The boy stumbled, almost fell.  The elderly man, in a natural, habitual way, caught and steadied him.  The father, distracted by the operator, hadn't noticed the boy nearly fell nor that he was caught.  Once finished in the front, they went and sat down.  That was all.

A woman and her son boarded the car.  The boy was about 25, 26, challenged-- wearing a pink 'Hannah Montana' sweatshirt designed for, I assume, a pre-teen girl.  It was two or three sizes too small, but seemed to make him happy.  It was his mother though, that I found the most appealing-- she was in her mid-forties, with the worn, weathered beaten-down face of someone whose lived a hard life of loving something very deeply that was tiring, time-consuming and difficult.  I watched her until they departed, both of them waving goodbye to the driver with drama and excitement.  I assume they ride that route often-- it is possible they do not.

Sometimes I ponder how I can feel such cynicism and despair at one time and such love and appreciation at another.  I usually shrug it off-- it's a wonderful life.

Red Bull Gives You Wings

     It is like a slow ascent to consciousness, like floating up from the bottom of the sea towards the sky above.  You realize that you are cold, but you don't know what you can do about it.  Next, you realize that you are walking, but it seems natural so you continue.    Then it dawns on you that you are outside, but that doesn't seem odd.  Finally you come to your senses and realize, with regret and shock, that you haven't the slightest idea where you are.  You're wandering around outside, without a jacket, in what appears to be a random suburb filled with unfamiliar houses.  This is not your suburb.

You check yourself.  You're fairly clean and dry, so you've been on your feet the entire time-- luckily no rolling around in the dewy grass of someone's front yard.  You see a Picayune on the ground and are thankful that you are assumedly still in the New Orleans Metro Area.  You pick it up and check the date:  Sunday.  This is right, last night was Saturday.  Check your pockets-- your phone is gone.  You have your ID, a debit card, and one single dollar.  Hope you didn't go to any ATMs whilst you were blacked out.

You pull your arms into your shirt and shiver and walk, and you curse yourself and your situation, staring around dully in disbelief.  Finally you stumble onto Veteran's Boulevard, but you're on the south side and far too west. You go into a gas station, looking a fright, and get twenty dollars out of an ATM. You stumble into a nearby sports bar, call a cab, and have a beer while you wait.

You get home and learn several things:  you gave your phone to your friend before disappearing, assumedly into a cab.  You left the bar around five-- you came to around nine.  During four unaccounted hours you spent thirty nine of the forty dollars you don't remember getting out of the ATM.  Theoretically, that money went to the cab driver that dumped you in the middle of nowhere.  You also realize you don't remember any of the five (5) drinks, four of which were bought for you, you had at the bar before abruptly leaving.  Mystery somewhat solved, you cancel all plans for the day and crash hard and long into your bed.

This friends, is a shining example of the absolute empirical evil that is Red Bull.  When mixed with vodka, it produces a delicious concoction that will try it's hardest to kill you.  While straight booze/beer/wine will dull your mind and body and eventually leave you passed out on the floor/couch/pool table/wherever, Red Bull and vodka will only dull your mind, keeping your body sprightly and alert so that it leaps joyfully into autopilot while your mind passes into shadow.

Experiences don't lie; you have been warned.

Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow

I don't like the snow.  It's really cold and wet and dirty and altogether unpleasant.  I've spent a fair amount of energy avoiding it.  So when I was awoken from my slumber this morning to the excited cries of "It's Snowing!!  It's Snowing!!"  I automatically thought "I'm in New Orleans.  You are a liar.  Stop shouting."  Unfortunately, they were not wicked lies.  It was really snowing.  In New Orleans.  WTF?

And not just a little snow, (Okay, maybe just a little snow when compared to places like Chicago or Long Island, but for SE Louisiana?) but at least a wet, slushy inch of wet miserable white all over everything.  And then, later in the day, it started to sleet.  I don't know who to blame... so I'm pointing my finger at global warming.  It's up to you Al Gore and Dennis Quaid!  Save us.  It's cold out there.

Ian's First Snow

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Palm trees are NOT native to SE Louisiana

Snow Angels

Cameron del Mar the Second

Cameron del Mar was a delightful animal, a cat of wonders and joy.  He is gone now, but his memory lives on...in this shiny new Schwinn I've purchased to ride about the countryside.  At first, I wasn't going to name the bike after the cat, but, lo and behold, this is a del Mar Schwinn.  It says it right there on the side.  It is destiny that this bike be mine, to look after me when Cameron cannot.

Hopefully, the owning of the bike will promptly inspire the learning to ride of it.  Because I don't know how.  And I've only been able to practice indoors, because the weather is shitty.  Raindrops keep falling on my head...

Ode to Lake Pontchartrain (the Metarie Shores)

Theoretically, I'm supposed to stay in Metarie until November Seventh, three more weeks...

Causeway Boulevard

Pontchartrain

Dead Catfish

Yellow Balloon on Levee

...perhaps we shouldn't count on that.

Burning Bridges

I don't work at New Orleans Boutique Hotels anymore, and for sure never again.  I left in an ungraceful way, after constructing a house of lies so large that, should it fall, would trap me beneath it like the aftermath of an earthquake.  And then, from stage left, came an unexpected wrecking ball.

There is little need for specifics, except to state that I have simply stopped going.  I ran away, like a little boy trailing kerosene and lighting matches.  And yet, I am strangely ambivalent to the whole situation.  I certainly don't regret my stopping going.  God knows (as well as any reader of this blog) that I never wanted to go to begin with and, once I started going, I was wildly unhappy the entire time I was there.  And I don't regret my awkward exit-- I've made those before and with escapes like these there's no need for decorum...

No, instead I think I feel a little wistful regret for the loss of the nostalgic glow that covered my previous time there-- back before Jeana left, and everyone changed and I changed and became cold and indifferent and they became irritating and unbearable.  In the light of this departure, even the old memories from the before time have been tainted.  That is the only downside.

And the kerosene catches and the old trestle goes up in flames...

This happens too often.  Sometimes I feel like General Sherman marching to the sea.  

Epic Fail: The Daiquiri Bay Knife Fight and My Descent into Alcoholism

Attention class-- Please raise your hand if you believed I had the constitution to be a non-drinking sober person. Anyone?  Anyone?  Well, to hell with you all, you were right.

That Jeana Richard with the evil red eyes?  She just might be the devil.  That is a chocolate daiquiri and it was absolutely fabulous.

But in my defense-- I had only moments prior had a near-death experience, and had no choice but to turn to alcohol to calm my nerves.  Yes, it's true.  we were at Daiquiri Bay, a lovely little daq shop near our Metarie home when, hark, what sound but a woman screaming?  Nay, not really screaming.  Bellowing.  Like a cow.  Apparently some crazy NOLA East boy pulled a knife on her because she was being drunken and annoying.  She told him it was very disrespectful to say "fuck" in front of her.  Or she told him it was disgusting that he threw up in the bathroom.  Or something.  I don't know... Either way he pulled a knife but was driven away by a pack of angry regular customers.  The boy fled on foot and the police came.  They asked us is we saw anything.  We didn't.  

Later, we went to Frat House and I had more to drink.  Oh, alcohol.  It's good to have you back.

Souled Out

Topic A--

On September 22 (yesterday) I sold my soul to the almighty god of profit and returned to work in the dark mines of despair that is the reservations office of New Orleans Boutique Hotels (Have you noticed my ridiculous indecision about this particular career path in my last several posts?  Are you as bored with and annoyed by this wishy-washy petulant whining as I have become?  Good-- just confirming we are, in fact, on the same page).  Really, I had no other choice.  I was flat out of money and had spent the week prior on a desperate quest throughout Metarie trying to find some responsibility-less nonsense blue-collar/retail/food service thing, but was continually turned down because (I can only assume) I was either over-qualified or unconvincing in my guarantees that I would take the job seriously and was in it for the long haul.  Anyway, no one would hire me.  So I chartered my little canoe and sailed down the River Styx back into Hades.  No, really--it is very, very bad.  I spend nine hours a day in various states of unhappiness and rage.  It makes me hate not only my boss and coworkers and patrons, but every single other person in the entire world who doesn't have to be there.  I'm counting down the days until the second of October, because that's the day on which I will have been there long enough to have received a paycheck large enough to pay Jeana what I owe her, and can make a big, unruly scene and walk out.  Oh, how I despise that awful, awful place.

Topic B--

I have stopped drinking.  Yes, yes-- I know.  That is a serious thing to do, but I truly believe it was time.  You may remember a few weekend back (or was it last weekend?  Time is hard)  when I missed Jen and the Saints game due to exhaustion and intoxication... well, too many weekends like that would kill someone.  But another weekend like the one just past, and someone would kill me.  Friday-- drunk fight with Abby (moderately wasted).  Saturday-- working at Ohm (completely, unbelievable destroyed).  Sunday-- drinking and watching the Saints game (still wasted from previous night) and then throwing up inside Jeana's (new) Xterra (sobered up slightly after that in order to make an admirable go at cleaning the interior of the car.  Unfortunately, that new car smell is gone forever).  So yeah, I'm fairly lucky I have a place to live and a life to live therein with, because so many people wished harm and death upon me over this (my birthday) weekend that I had no choice but to reevaluate my existence. No more alcohol.  No really, I mean it.  

P.S. Jeana has forgiven me and vowed to get me to start drinking again. If anyone could do it, I think she's the only one with the right, but I'm standing firm.  No more alcohol.  Seriously, I'm not joking.  Done.

Cake and Candles

It was my birthday...

...and now, I am 23.

Just Like a Woman: Joani Richard Turns 21

There is, really, no excuse whatsoever to justify being at Harrah's at 6am on a weekday... unless, of course, someone is turning twenty one and it's there first time there.  And although these pictures don't represent it (these are from the bar-crawl before and the party the next night), we really were there.  At 6am.  Which I've done before.  More than once.  Ugh.

Birthday Girl

Russo, Tracy, Joani

an assortment of girls

Brad, Jeana, DJ, Russo

I have partied nonstop for two days...again.  That's twice in less than a week.  With my own birthday coming up, I may just disintegrate into a puddle of light beer and tequila.  I'm hungover.  I need a nap.  Happy birthday, Joani.

Tangled Up In Blue

(...and, by the way, we're going to stay on this Bob Dylan train until it derails.  It tickles me.)

Everything went wrong this weekend, and I have no one but myself to blame.  Well, no one but myself for most of it.  

I certainly isn't my fault that the stupid NOPD came into the Ohm on Friday and shut the fucking place down at 2:30am, threatening to throw everyone in jail and neighing incessantly about stupid 'curfew'.  Nor is it my fault that, to avoid the same thing happening again we shut Ohm down at two the next night, which prevented anyone from making any money because, let's be honest, no one comes out on Saturday before 2 anyway.  So, we went to Amps to relax with free drinks and, y'know what?, stupid fucking NOPD rolled in about 3 and shut them down, too.  Ridiculous fuckfaces.

My blame comes into play with the fact that Jen was in town from Baltimore for a couple of days and I wanted to see her and didn't, and that I had a comp ticket to the Saints game on Sunday and didn't go.  After spending Friday night and Saturday night twisted on tequila, coffee, and coke I crashed and crashed hard come Sunday morning, missing noon kick-off by three hours and Jen lunch by four.  So, if I had behaved and acted responsibly, I could have seen Jen and gone to the game, but would have never broken into a pool to go skinny dipping, camped in the back of a car for 4 hours, or done lines in the bathroom of a CCs on Magazine Street.  I'm not sure the scales don't level out here.   

But anyway, we are all Sisyphus' children, and like a fool I have descended back into the quagmire that is New Orleans Boutique Hotels.  I was officially brought back onto staff in a ridiculous meeting on Monday, and will return to the office as soon as the phones are corrected (they still are undergoing post-Gustav problems).  I am not happy about this situation-- I am pretty sure I will regret it, and become bitter and miserable before I leave.  But, even if you know you're in a circle, it doesn't mean you can break out.  Fuck it-- I'm in New Orleans until after Halloween.

Eve of Destruction

From the Superdome...

It's not like last time.  This time, there's no foolish bravado, only fear.  People are packing up and moving out, some for good. 

Saturday night, normally one of the five or ten busiest weekends of the year;  Most restaurants are closed, most hotels are boarded up.  Bars are open, but the crowds are thin.   Sunday morning, and the streets are deserted-- we close up the Ambassador Hotel and hit the road.

We're driving to Natchez, Mississippi, where we operate a Country Inns and Suites.  Contraflow starts on I-10, extends on I-55 up to McComb, and the traffic is still bumper to bumper.  We should have taken Highway 61, but lessons learned.  There's nothing to do but creep along and drink.  It's 10am.

On the Road...

The Drinking...

The Peeing...

Who Dat?

I had been to the Superdome before... Tulane played their home games there (except for Homecoming, which commences in Tad Gormley Stadium in city Park, which is small and altogether unimpressive.  Go figure.)  But I had never been to a Saints game before--

Conchetta and I

Jeana, Conchetta, and Abby

Abby and I

Myself, Abby, Coach Wayne, and Conchetta

Sure, it was just a preseason game.  And the seats were pretty far back in the nosebleeds.  And the Saints lost to the Dolphins, who are apparently one of the worst teams in the league and therefore this game doesn't bode well for the rest of the season...  But the tickets were free, and the company was great.  We went to Dino's (where else?) after-- it was a good time.

The City of New Orleans

For the time being, I've gone home.  I left Tennessee via train on Wednesday and headed down to New Orleans.  This is the first time I've trained for such a long distance in years, and, whenever possible, will be my choice in modes of travel.  There's lots of leg room, the seats are large and comfy, and this train in particular wasn't particularly crowded-- hopefully that's the norm.  

Apparently, however, despite the imminent fun of Southern Decadence, I've chosen a bad weekend to visit-- with Hurricane Gustav, the weather is going to get bad.  We'll see.  I didn't know of this until I was on the train halfway here, but probably would have come anyway.  

Anyway, I've been offered a position with New Orleans Boutique Hotels similar, although not quite the same, as the position I held right before my departure.  That is a stroke of luck-- now all I need is to find a room somewhere in the Marigny or the Quarter I can rent for a month or two.

It's great to be back-- to see the old haunts and the old faces.  To stay out past two and eat great food.  Plus Southern Decadence is this weekend-- God knows what trouble I'll get into then.  But anyway, I think I'm staying here through Halloween.