Bad mood

Someone from NPR left a comment on A's blog wondering how to get in touch. Bastard. And Miss S got a job at the NYT. It's petty to be jealous, but I'm in a mood. A dark, bad mood.

You don't know how hard it was to drive all the way down I-55, past Memphis through Mississippi and across the state line into Louisiana, to see the signs for New Orleans 150 miles, 120 miles, etc., to get that close and then turn around and go back the other way without going in. Everyone else is going in, I feel like a wimp. But it just seemed like a bad idea when everyone was already evacuating ahead of Hurricane Rita. Sometimes it's hard to believe this is really happening.

I got off to a late start. I thought if I got too tired and couldn't make it all the way down, I'd stop somewhere between Memphis and Jackson and get a motel room. But of course, all the motels are still full of Katrina refugees. A month or more in the Motel 6 in Canton, Mississippi--that would be worse than staying with my folks--and let me be clear, they're driving me ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NUTS. With my classes and internship, I'm committed to stay here at least into November, and I honestly don't know if I can make it without snapping.

But I digress. I slept, briefly, at a rest stop, just like I did going the other way during the evacuation. I got up at sunrise and brushed my teeth in the ladies room and got back on the road.

Miss P was staying at the home of an animal rescue volunteer who lives in a tiny town a little bit north of Baton Rouge. I got off the interstate and onto Louisiana 10. It's a pretty country road that goes through farms and small towns. It looks like Louisiana, with the moss-covered oaks and the creole cottages and bayous and battered pickup trucks. The weather was still hot and steamy down there.

Miss P's benefactor's house was a largish creole cottage on the historic register, with a screened-in porch and a big oak tree in the front yard. The owner was a well-maintained single middle-aged woman who lives there alone in sort of shabby chic style. I immediately liked her and loved her house.

Miss P is completely non-flummoxed by the many turns of events of the last few weeks. She's just as bossy and demanding as ever.

I napped a little bit at the house and took a shower, in a brief interlude of peace and contentment. But it couldn't last. I had to get back in order to teach today.

While I was napping, everything fell apart in the outside world. Thick swarms of lovebugs had emerged--I'm not exaggerating when I say it was like a biblical plague. I stopped to get gas, and they were in my shirt and my hair and flying in my eyes. On the road, it was like driving through a black snowstorm. There were so many bug guts on the windshielf, I had to stop every hour to try to clean it off.

And by then the Rita evacuation was underway. I-55 was moving and gas was available, but there was a lot of traffic--caravans of humvees coming out of New Orleans, Texans in RVs, utility trucks, lots of idiots parked in the passing lane doing 40 miles per hour.

This morning I went to tutor a student at Washington University, which has a pretty campus. If I were staying in the city, maybe I wouldn't be so depressed, and I feel like a bad person for complaining when I've been so lucky and my parents have been good to me--but I hate it here. I just fucking hate it here and I want to go home.

I was looking at cars and feeling bummed out about what is available for the cash I have on hand. Then I got a notice that I'm not supposed to be spending the financial aid I got this semester because I won't get more next semester, and thus I don't think I can afford to buy a car at all. Which is okay because I don't really want to buy a car and spend all that money on gas and repairs and insurance. Plus, even though I love driving a good car, I think that fossil-fuel burning cars are at the root a lot of what's going wrong around here and I would just rather opt out.

And in a way I don't need one. My folks have been good about sharing theirs. But that's contributing to my depression--you can't go anywhere here without a car, so I can't go anywhere without asking permission. Back in New Orleans, in my old life, I didn't need a car. But I can't forget that helpless feeling of calling everyone I know trying to find a way out during the evacuation, and having to depend on other people and their schedules and whims. I want a car so I won't be so helpless. And also I don't know if there will be open shops and restaurants in the neighborhood when I go back. Maybe I'll have to drive to Metairie to get groceries.

So I go around and around with this. The way to get a car would be to get a full time job so that I could replace the funds I used to by it. And then I'd need a car so I could go to my full-time job. But I feel like I'm at my limit right now of what I can handle. The internship is a good thing, and I can do a lot of my work at home. I can't quit that, and I don't want to. The teaching pays a good hourly rate, but the hours are limited, but that's okay because they're pretty stressful hours.

I kind of wish I hadn't come here, but where else could I really go and expect to stay for months with my animals and borrow a car and so forth? I feel trapped, but no matter where I went I wouldn't be in New Orleans and I'd be depressed. Going back there seems depressing and not going back seems depressing. There's really nowhere else I want to be, not in this country. I hate what is happening in this country. I hate the strip malls and the SUVs and the office parks and the fucking evangelical Christians and their megachurches. I hate the Midwest with a furious passion.

I miss New Orleans. I miss everyone I knew there. I miss my bicycle. I miss the used bookstore on Decatur. I miss the Rue de la Course. I miss my bathtub. I want a shrimp poboy. I want to go the Circle Bar. I want to listen to WWOZ and WTUL. I want to ride the streetcar. I want to go get pho at a Vietnamese restaurant. I want to go see Ryan Scully. I want to do whatever the hell I want and not have to tell anyone what I'm doing or be subjected to their worry and their fussing and their opinions about what I should or should not be doing. I want to make my own dinner the way I want to make it. I want to go back to complaining about not getting laid. I want to sleep in my own bed in my own house. I want a fish taco. I want one of those long steamy New Orleans nights of staying out till sunrise. I just fucking want to go home.