Last night I went to a Christmas Eve party at the Mid-City home of the couple who stayed in my house while I was gone. Their house was beautiful and they were so happy to be back in it and have it full of people. It was so good to be at a house party in New Orleans. But outside there were blocks and blocks and blocks of darkness and piles of debris.
You can exist in an illusion of semi-normalcy in the "sliver by the river." But beyond that the destruction is so endless and overwhelming, it's hard to see how this city is going to get back on its feet again. And why bother trying when the next hurricane season is going to knock it back down again?
Yet I love it more than ever.
But now I temporarily leave behind the drama of life in post-Katrina New Orleans for the semi-tragic saga of Mr. M and Miss H. I am leaving for the frozen tundra of the upper Midwest this afternoon.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Rock and Bowl
The Rock and Bowl got about 12 feet of water during the flood. The surrounding neighborhood is pretty much abandoned. But, miraculously and perhaps foolishly, it's open. And the adorable Geno Delafose (& The French Rockin Boogie!) played zydeco night last Thursday. It was packed. I parked on the dark street, next to a pile of ruined televisions and appliances.
It smells a bit moldy coming up the stairs. The dance floor was crowded, and 98 percent of the dancers knew what they are doing (zydeco dancing seems kinda hard to me.) But when the dancers start stomping on the floor during the fast songs, the floor sways noticably and the speakers rock back and forth. It was alarming, but then I thought that to die in the collapse of the Rock and Bowl would be a worthy way to go out.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
The Corps
I stopped by my old office today to see how everyone was doing (more or less okay, mostly.) The old office is close to the Corps of Engineers building. They said that the Corps is having pep rallys every day to keep up morale now that they are the most reviled organization in New Orleans.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
New Orleans is alive
New Orleans is still New Orleans, and I can't express how happy I am to be back. I had red beans for lunch yesterday and a shrimp poboy at Domilise's today. People are riding their bikes up and down the street and hanging out on the corner. WWOZ and WTUL are on the air. Rue de la Course is open.
But if you'd talked to me Sunday night I would have said that it's much, much, much worse than it looks on television. The scale of destruction is inexpressible. Driving west on I-10 from Mobile it gets more and more post-apocalyptic. Steel billboards bent over like willow trees. Abandoned cars by the side of the road. Blue tarps on every roof that's still there. The twin span is now the single span. You creep over it, one lane in each direction, and contemplate its collapsed twin beside you. New Orleans East is abandoned. There are still upturned boats on the median, cars in the canal, brick buildings collapsed, big box stores smashed in by their fallen signs. Driving on the elevated highway over the 9th Ward, 7th Ward, it's dark and abandoned. Claiborne Avenue is torn apart. Tulane Avenue and North Carrollton are worse. Even in comparatively lightly hit uptown, there's destruction everywhere. On St. Charles, street lights have fallen over and there's no streetcar. There's a blue tarp on the roof of my old building. Most of the stop lights are not working. There's piles of debris everywhere. A lot of people are living in campers in their yard.
But the parts of town that are occupied are busy. A lot of stores and restaurants are open, though they close early and selection is spotty in the stores. Magazine Street is jumping. The Quarter is quiet, but it's almost kind of nice to have it to ourselves without 9 million tourists all over the place. I've seen a lot of familiar faces of people I don't really but used to see all the time.
My house is untouched, except that the tree in the back yard is uprooted and is leaning oh so lightly on the roof of the house behind me. The peach tree in the front has been cut down. And like everyone, there are cryptic symbols spray-painted on the front of my house. But I have been spared the experience of having to deal with wet moldy stuff, wet moldy house. Except my mail is wet and moldy and old. No sign of any new mail for months and months. And no land-line phone.
The rumor that there aren't any black people left in New Orleans is not at all true. But if you enjoy getting hit on relentlessly by Mexican guys, this is now the place to be.
The best analogy I can make is that New Orleans is like someone who just got the living crap beat out of it in an accident or a fight. It's been horribly, gravely injured. It's going to be a long, long road to recovery and it's never going to be the same again. But there's no reason to think that the injuries it's sustained so far are going to kill it. But there's no way it can survive another blow.
People, we need Category 5 levees and a major reengineering of the river and wetlands restoration. It's true that from a practical standpoint maybe there shouldn't be a town here at all, but there is a town here and it's a town like no other, and in any case it's wrong, it's deeply immoral, to say you're going to save it and then do nothing or far too little.
It's true that the local and state governments are largely corrupt or incompetent, but even in the best case this is not the job for a state government. Only the federal government has the money and the power to fix this right. So please, please let's do this.
There's idle rumor about drafting Bill Clinton into running for mayor. He was here talking about how the city can be saved. He mentioned this was the first town he ever saw with buildings over two stories tall. Wags say it's the first place he ever got a blow job. But New Orleans needs someone like that, who has vision and national and international power.
Make levees not war!
But if you'd talked to me Sunday night I would have said that it's much, much, much worse than it looks on television. The scale of destruction is inexpressible. Driving west on I-10 from Mobile it gets more and more post-apocalyptic. Steel billboards bent over like willow trees. Abandoned cars by the side of the road. Blue tarps on every roof that's still there. The twin span is now the single span. You creep over it, one lane in each direction, and contemplate its collapsed twin beside you. New Orleans East is abandoned. There are still upturned boats on the median, cars in the canal, brick buildings collapsed, big box stores smashed in by their fallen signs. Driving on the elevated highway over the 9th Ward, 7th Ward, it's dark and abandoned. Claiborne Avenue is torn apart. Tulane Avenue and North Carrollton are worse. Even in comparatively lightly hit uptown, there's destruction everywhere. On St. Charles, street lights have fallen over and there's no streetcar. There's a blue tarp on the roof of my old building. Most of the stop lights are not working. There's piles of debris everywhere. A lot of people are living in campers in their yard.
But the parts of town that are occupied are busy. A lot of stores and restaurants are open, though they close early and selection is spotty in the stores. Magazine Street is jumping. The Quarter is quiet, but it's almost kind of nice to have it to ourselves without 9 million tourists all over the place. I've seen a lot of familiar faces of people I don't really but used to see all the time.
My house is untouched, except that the tree in the back yard is uprooted and is leaning oh so lightly on the roof of the house behind me. The peach tree in the front has been cut down. And like everyone, there are cryptic symbols spray-painted on the front of my house. But I have been spared the experience of having to deal with wet moldy stuff, wet moldy house. Except my mail is wet and moldy and old. No sign of any new mail for months and months. And no land-line phone.
The rumor that there aren't any black people left in New Orleans is not at all true. But if you enjoy getting hit on relentlessly by Mexican guys, this is now the place to be.
The best analogy I can make is that New Orleans is like someone who just got the living crap beat out of it in an accident or a fight. It's been horribly, gravely injured. It's going to be a long, long road to recovery and it's never going to be the same again. But there's no reason to think that the injuries it's sustained so far are going to kill it. But there's no way it can survive another blow.
People, we need Category 5 levees and a major reengineering of the river and wetlands restoration. It's true that from a practical standpoint maybe there shouldn't be a town here at all, but there is a town here and it's a town like no other, and in any case it's wrong, it's deeply immoral, to say you're going to save it and then do nothing or far too little.
It's true that the local and state governments are largely corrupt or incompetent, but even in the best case this is not the job for a state government. Only the federal government has the money and the power to fix this right. So please, please let's do this.
There's idle rumor about drafting Bill Clinton into running for mayor. He was here talking about how the city can be saved. He mentioned this was the first town he ever saw with buildings over two stories tall. Wags say it's the first place he ever got a blow job. But New Orleans needs someone like that, who has vision and national and international power.
Make levees not war!
Monday, December 19, 2005
It's still home. I still love it. I'm glad to be back.
But it's a mess.
The old lady next door is still there and doing fine. I'll write more when I have time to sit down and figure out how to articulate what this is like. But I just wanted to report that I'm home and I'm okay and my car will do 105 without breaking a sweat.
The old lady next door is still there and doing fine. I'll write more when I have time to sit down and figure out how to articulate what this is like. But I just wanted to report that I'm home and I'm okay and my car will do 105 without breaking a sweat.
Friday, December 09, 2005
It may be different, but it will be worse.
I'm watching The Leopard, directed by Visconti in the 60's and set in Sicily in the 19th century. It's atmospheric but way too slow and talky, and I don't find Burt Lancaster convincing as a Sicilian prince. But there's a scene about two hours into it (out of a total of three) that grabbed me. Some sort of government stooge comes to Sicily, which he finds shockingly backward and squalid, to talk Lancaster's prince into accepting the position of senator in the new government. The stooge gives Lancaster a pep talk about how things are going to change, and surely Sicilians want change. Lancaster says that they don't want change, because they think they're perfect already, and that something in the atmosphere intoxicates and oppresses them into stasis, and that the beauty is dependent on the squalor. At the end of their meeting, he walks the stooge to his coach through the decrepitude and the stooge says just wait and see, this new modern government is going to change all of this...
And Lancaster says it's never going to change, or rather it might change in a few hundred years "After that it may be different, but it will be worse."
He could have been describing New Orleans, anytime before the diaspora, with perfect accuracy. It may be that believing it so made it so. Still, I'm skeptical that its future will be better than its past.
And Lancaster says it's never going to change, or rather it might change in a few hundred years "After that it may be different, but it will be worse."
He could have been describing New Orleans, anytime before the diaspora, with perfect accuracy. It may be that believing it so made it so. Still, I'm skeptical that its future will be better than its past.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Bold Renewal
Today Tulane announced a "bold renewal plan" that basically amounts to getting rid of the engineering school, downsizing the medical school, and adjusting to a smaller student body rather than lower admission standards. I can't blame them for any of it, though I hate the cheesy rhetoric and I feel for the people who are losing their jobs.
I don't have it in me to regret quitting my job, though the future seems hazy and I wonder how I'll pay my rent next summer. I'm still scared of turning into yet another unhappy lawyer, but this internship has given me confidence that I can do the work well.
I finally read John McPhee's "Atchafalaya" essay, about the Corps of Engineers' doomed battle with the river in Louisiana, from The Control of Nature. Oliver Houck, big honcho in Tulane's environmental law program and my criminal law professor, turns out to be a major figure in the essay. It was heartening to find him there--I do see him as a kind of role model. But I'm not really that much of a fan of McPhee's style, though it may be heresy to say so. He's obviously smart and thughtful and he chooses interesting subjects, but he leaves me cold.
I also find myself relieved to be out of the literary game, though I can possibly seem myself as a legal journalist a la Nina Totenberg or Dahlia Lithwick, and also as a sporadic essayist, and as a compulsive but unread blogger.
I don't have it in me to regret quitting my job, though the future seems hazy and I wonder how I'll pay my rent next summer. I'm still scared of turning into yet another unhappy lawyer, but this internship has given me confidence that I can do the work well.
I finally read John McPhee's "Atchafalaya" essay, about the Corps of Engineers' doomed battle with the river in Louisiana, from The Control of Nature. Oliver Houck, big honcho in Tulane's environmental law program and my criminal law professor, turns out to be a major figure in the essay. It was heartening to find him there--I do see him as a kind of role model. But I'm not really that much of a fan of McPhee's style, though it may be heresy to say so. He's obviously smart and thughtful and he chooses interesting subjects, but he leaves me cold.
I also find myself relieved to be out of the literary game, though I can possibly seem myself as a legal journalist a la Nina Totenberg or Dahlia Lithwick, and also as a sporadic essayist, and as a compulsive but unread blogger.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
The Great Depression
I read today that the suicide rate in the New Orleans area has doubled though the population is much smaller, and that half that population is clinically depressed, crying in the grocery store. Am I ready for that? I still cry a few times a week myself, randomly, on the train or over my lunchtime sandwich. At least down there people will understand why I'm crying. Miss S is going back for a week's visit. She left today, I think.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Did I mention I want to go home?
Okay, there was one positive event today: after I got some of that snow off my car and completed the laborious process of getting to work, where I handed in a memo I'd been working on since last week, the attorney complemented my work, saying I had done a very good and very thorough job, especially considering I had only a semester of law school. Only a week of law school, I told him. Even more impressive, then, he said. So, good going Miss H, give yourself a pat on the back. I can do this. I have an attorney-approved writing sample that I can send out with my summer job applications. I'm going to try to do a big batch tomorrow.
But I'm tired and sick and driving in the snow is no fun. That allegedly wasn't a lot of snow, but it seemed like too much to me. Anyway, we got more in the far-south suburbs than they did in the district, oddly enough. My aunt and uncle, both school teachers, had a snow day today. But not me. More snow on Thursday night, they say.
Maybe Friday I'll get a snow day. Only a week and a half to go. The song that made me cry today: "Take Me to the Mardi Gras," Paul Simon with the Dixie Hummingbirds
I'm congested and headachy and exhausted, but nevertheless I was going to go to afternoon arguments at the Supreme Court today--but their website lied: there are no afternoon arguments, and morning arguments get seated at 7 a.m., according to the nice SCOTUS police officer. Screw that. I did witness a bunch of people congregated outside, waving signs having to do with today's argument about federal funds for
universities being contingent on full support of military recruiting on campus, despite the fact that the military discriminates against homosexuals. Tomorrow
will be the last day of arguments while I am here, but I don't think it's worth getting up at 4:30 on a cold winter morning. I hate early morning and I hate winter.
I want to go home, but I know it's going to be bad when the formerly cheerful and unapologetically shallow columnist Chris Rose is writing columns about suicide, despair and tragedy: http://www.nola.com/living/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-5/1133851880209270.xml
But soon enough I will see for myself.
My aunt thinks I'm deep.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Snowflakes
They really do cling to your nose and eyelashes, but it's beyond me why they'd be on anyone's list of favorite things. I cannot express how much I want to go home.
Last year it snowed in New Orleans on Christmas day. It seemed a portent of something magical, but it was really an omen of freaky bad destructive weather.
Last year it snowed in New Orleans on Christmas day. It seemed a portent of something magical, but it was really an omen of freaky bad destructive weather.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Romantic brain infection
The thing I hate about romantic relationships is that being in one seems to change me for the worse. When I'm alone and uncontaminated by love's brain chemistry, I am confident and sane. I may have moments of self-doubt and I may be lonely, but I don't walk around feeling the need for the approval and acceptance of the world, or of anyone in it.
But once I know someone likes me and is attracted to me, I simply can't stand the idea of losing that, even as I know I inevitably will, and it makes me insane. So I can't just appreciate the attention and care MM gives me. I want more, more, more. Yet I know nothing hastens the end of love like the constant need for reassurance.
Worse, even the attentions of a man I'm not really interested in can spur this cycle. I never wanted J to fall in love with me, for example, and I wasn't ever going to sleep with him or run off with him or whatever he wanted. Yet I didn't really want him to get over me, did I? I didn't consciously plan it out, but I inadvertantly behaved in a way guaranteed to keep him frustrated but hot for me. I'd avoid him for long stretches of time, but not too long. Then I'd seem him and flirt, but not too much, so that he might have doubts about whether I was flirting at all. And I'd duck out before he could make a move. Again, none of this was deliberate, but still--bad, bad, bad Miss H.
The thing is, if you want to cultivate a man's undying affection, or at least his undying lust, that tease and retreat method is infinitely more effective than chasing him and nagging him for more attention and affection. Yet I don't want to use any method at all. I hate, hate, hate tactical romance. I don't want to play these stupid fucking games, yet it seems necessary, seems built into our brains.
I want to be with someone, yet I hate it, and this is why. Because something so tenuous and fragile rises to primary importance and I can't stand the idea of losing it but know that I likely will. But I don't want to manipulate someone into loving me, and I don't want to turn into a cynical and iron-armored old maid just for the sake of avoiding pain.
I have to remember that I'm strong inside and fundamentally sound, and that I can survive, and that pain is inevitable no matter what, which is why its important to enjoy and embrace the good things that life has on offer--like good-night phone calls from Mr. M, whom I'd long ago given up on. I don't need to try to get more, by trick or by chase. I can just savor what's on offer.
Well, I can in theory. Whether I can in practice remains to be seen.
But once I know someone likes me and is attracted to me, I simply can't stand the idea of losing that, even as I know I inevitably will, and it makes me insane. So I can't just appreciate the attention and care MM gives me. I want more, more, more. Yet I know nothing hastens the end of love like the constant need for reassurance.
Worse, even the attentions of a man I'm not really interested in can spur this cycle. I never wanted J to fall in love with me, for example, and I wasn't ever going to sleep with him or run off with him or whatever he wanted. Yet I didn't really want him to get over me, did I? I didn't consciously plan it out, but I inadvertantly behaved in a way guaranteed to keep him frustrated but hot for me. I'd avoid him for long stretches of time, but not too long. Then I'd seem him and flirt, but not too much, so that he might have doubts about whether I was flirting at all. And I'd duck out before he could make a move. Again, none of this was deliberate, but still--bad, bad, bad Miss H.
The thing is, if you want to cultivate a man's undying affection, or at least his undying lust, that tease and retreat method is infinitely more effective than chasing him and nagging him for more attention and affection. Yet I don't want to use any method at all. I hate, hate, hate tactical romance. I don't want to play these stupid fucking games, yet it seems necessary, seems built into our brains.
I want to be with someone, yet I hate it, and this is why. Because something so tenuous and fragile rises to primary importance and I can't stand the idea of losing it but know that I likely will. But I don't want to manipulate someone into loving me, and I don't want to turn into a cynical and iron-armored old maid just for the sake of avoiding pain.
I have to remember that I'm strong inside and fundamentally sound, and that I can survive, and that pain is inevitable no matter what, which is why its important to enjoy and embrace the good things that life has on offer--like good-night phone calls from Mr. M, whom I'd long ago given up on. I don't need to try to get more, by trick or by chase. I can just savor what's on offer.
Well, I can in theory. Whether I can in practice remains to be seen.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Dream
Last night, I had a vivid dream of being back in New Orleans. It was like a charred and destroyed European city at the end of the second World War. There was a thin crust of almost-normalcy along the river, but even there random buildings were in rubble, the air was toxic, and it was deserted and eerily quiet. When you came to the edge, there was an abrubt line beyond which miles and miles of smoking bombed out shells of buildings lay dark as far as vision extended. I was looking out at this through a window of a bar. I started to cry and a group of black guys made fun of me as if I was a gawker and tourist and I started to hit them with a stick and shout that I just got home and New Orleans is my home and I love New Orleans.
Except for the last part about hitting people with sticks, that's probably not far from the way it will really be.
Except for the last part about hitting people with sticks, that's probably not far from the way it will really be.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Emotional tornados
I peed in a cup for my government today. It was somehat less than dignified. My internship is three-quarters finished and they're just getting around to giving me a drug test.
I went back to PA for the second half of the Thanksgiving weekend and it was fun. My sister is in a better frame of mind about getting married, I think her fiance is a sweetie and a good cook, and she asked me to be the maid of honor.
But. It's cold. I'm liking DC less and less. I want to go back to New Orleans and stay, if there's still a recognizable New Orleans to live in. After all, wasn't my law school adventure partly motivated by the urge to "Defend New Orleans? I know it's going to be hard--intellectually I recognize that emotionally it's going to be harder than I can imagine right now. I talked to AD a few days ago. He's back and he sounded pretty low.
I'm trying to get a summer job, despite the best efforts of the workers in the Kinko's across the street from my office, who are so slow and incompentent it reminds me of Louisiana. I'd like to work for the Natural Resources Defense Council over the summer, if I could get the job I want.
I'll be on my way home in two weeks, but (speaking of cold) I'll be going up to the frozen tundra of the upper Midwest for Christmas through New Years. Mr. M was not blowing me off after all and I am going to see him. Such a tornado of confused emotions about that. Oh, I'm happy, definitely, happy, happy, happy. But gun-shy and doubtful and intermittently paranoid. And wasn't I recently lecturing myself and everyone else about how romance and commitment and so forth was all a crock of shit? I don't exactly take it back, either. But he's the only one who makes it seem like it might be worth the risk and bother.
He does really appreciate me, for one thing, in the way that I've always been offended that most guys don't. He makes me feel heard and understood, not always and not perfectly, but more than anyone else does. And there's the crackle and the buzz and the click and the pet names and the laughing. He can be an utter sweetheart and so adorable.
But there's a lot to be cautious about, too, most especially that he has some anger and meanness in him. Not that you can exactly blame him, considering what he's been through. But some people have a capacity for that and some don't, and I don't want to be anyone's emotional chew toy. And, too, his future is all up in the air. Maybe he'll have his operation and go on a quest for all the pussy he missed out on in the last half-dozen years, and I couldn't exactly blame him for that, either, though it would hurt. Plus I'm skeptical in general of the human capacity to retain appreciation for a good thing over time. But all I can do is wait and see...
Anyway, I think I ought not write about this too much, for the sake of his privacy and mine, at least until things are more settled. Things are too delicate right now for too much poking and prodding.
I went back to PA for the second half of the Thanksgiving weekend and it was fun. My sister is in a better frame of mind about getting married, I think her fiance is a sweetie and a good cook, and she asked me to be the maid of honor.
But. It's cold. I'm liking DC less and less. I want to go back to New Orleans and stay, if there's still a recognizable New Orleans to live in. After all, wasn't my law school adventure partly motivated by the urge to "Defend New Orleans? I know it's going to be hard--intellectually I recognize that emotionally it's going to be harder than I can imagine right now. I talked to AD a few days ago. He's back and he sounded pretty low.
I'm trying to get a summer job, despite the best efforts of the workers in the Kinko's across the street from my office, who are so slow and incompentent it reminds me of Louisiana. I'd like to work for the Natural Resources Defense Council over the summer, if I could get the job I want.
I'll be on my way home in two weeks, but (speaking of cold) I'll be going up to the frozen tundra of the upper Midwest for Christmas through New Years. Mr. M was not blowing me off after all and I am going to see him. Such a tornado of confused emotions about that. Oh, I'm happy, definitely, happy, happy, happy. But gun-shy and doubtful and intermittently paranoid. And wasn't I recently lecturing myself and everyone else about how romance and commitment and so forth was all a crock of shit? I don't exactly take it back, either. But he's the only one who makes it seem like it might be worth the risk and bother.
He does really appreciate me, for one thing, in the way that I've always been offended that most guys don't. He makes me feel heard and understood, not always and not perfectly, but more than anyone else does. And there's the crackle and the buzz and the click and the pet names and the laughing. He can be an utter sweetheart and so adorable.
But there's a lot to be cautious about, too, most especially that he has some anger and meanness in him. Not that you can exactly blame him, considering what he's been through. But some people have a capacity for that and some don't, and I don't want to be anyone's emotional chew toy. And, too, his future is all up in the air. Maybe he'll have his operation and go on a quest for all the pussy he missed out on in the last half-dozen years, and I couldn't exactly blame him for that, either, though it would hurt. Plus I'm skeptical in general of the human capacity to retain appreciation for a good thing over time. But all I can do is wait and see...
Anyway, I think I ought not write about this too much, for the sake of his privacy and mine, at least until things are more settled. Things are too delicate right now for too much poking and prodding.
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