Springtime in New Orleans

Yesterday was the first day of the year that was too hot. I ought not complain, as the good weather lasted longer than usual this spring. It was the nicest Jazzfest I can remember.

However. Yesterday was not only the first day it was too hot, but also the first day of termite swarming season. Imagine riding your bicycle down lovely St. Charles Avenue at around 8 p.m., just after sunset, and being pelted by kamikaze termites. Termites in your eyes. Termites in your hair. Termites down your cleavage. Some sort of graduation exercises were happening on Loyola's front lawn there in the termite storm. It's just part of the charm of Old New Orleans--land of plague and pestilence.

The point of this blog is that my life is on the verge of changing fairly drastically, and I want to make a record of it. I also want to keep writing even though I will no longer be getting paid to write. I want a reading audience, too, though I think I'll wait to inform anyone that this blog is here. Maybe someone will discover this by accident. One of my favorite goofing-off-at-work tactics lately has been to check in on Adam's blog and then hit the "next blog" link to whatever has just been updated. You might like to try it if you get bored with what I have to say, or you're just looking for something else to read.

Anyway, the changes: I'm quitting my job and going to law school at the relatively late age of 36. I'm moving (I hope, cross your fingers) out of my semi-squalid ghetto flat to an adorable little shotgun house near the Riverbend. But the most significant change is perhaps the least tangible one. I've stopped caring about love and romance. Really. Try me. It feels amazing. I want that shotgun house all to myself. I'm bored with difficult men, moody men, tragic men, immature not-ready men, flaky men, wimpy men, dominant men, crazy men with issues. I'm not even interested in normal men who are ready to settle down. Last week I was on a little road trip with two married women about my age. Only been married a few years. Both celibate and neither one particularly happy. Who needs that?

For now it feels freeing and peaceful and easy to just leave all that alone. It probably won't stay so easy, of course. I'm not ready to sign up for lifelong celibacy and I'm not interested in bar-tramp style promiscuity, so sooner or later I'm going to have to negotiate a relationship of some sort with a man. But not right now.