So, I guess I'm gonna be blogging my vacation... does that make me a bitch? I thought a few of my friends might get a kick out of getting minor updates along the way. And now that I've figured out how to send photos from my phone straight to the blog, that's gonna be a fun thing to do the rest of the week. We also have wireless internet here at the Marina ($21 for 3 days... gee, that was so Warhol Diaries of me).

Last night was a drunken whirl down Duval Street. There were shots involved... tequilla even. Poor Scotty somehow smashed his Prada sunglasses and doesn't remember how. But he's better off than the cute blond twink who fell flat on his face at the Bourbon Street Pub last night breaking one of his front teeth in half. Watching one of his friends search the ground with a candle for the tooth was sort of funny. Finally, we were all, "honey, it's not like you can run get it reattached." We kept imagining how he was gonna feel waking up this morning with no memory of the fall, suddenly realizing he was missing half a tooth. Somebody was on the phone with daddy this morning, I imagine...

Seastreet, our floating hotel

The Galleon Marina at Key West

Smoking the customary first cigar in a Key West dive bar. Whee!

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

So, we're at sea, on our way to Key West, listening to cds I made for last years boat trip. Boy was I into supergay disco last year...

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

We're on vacation!

This is day 3 of 9 days yachting around Florida. We spent our first night docked at Miami Beach Marina. I got to see my friend Gonzalo's glorious South Beach high rise apartment. And we spent a little time eating and drinking in South Beach. I always thought i'd hate Miami, but I was wrong. It's very beautiful. As are the people... and the cars... and the dogs... and etc etc...

Yesterday, we boated on to Duck Key and we spent the night at Hawk's Cay, a pretty swank and very tropical resort. I'm currently typing on their free wireless internet in 'the Library.' This afternoon it's on to Key West for the next 4 or 5 days, with a day at the Dry Tortugas National Park. We'll see...

I'm loving my new SLVR, cuz I can IM, read my email and get news even when we're pretty far out on the water. And I just spent some time figuring out how to mobile blog with it, as well as how to get my gmail. Don's probably going to throw my phone overboard at some point... But, it is fun IMing people who are at work and saying "oh... we're having cocktails and watching the dolphins swim by..."

So, today marks exactly one year ago that I left New Orleans to move to Lafayette. And what did I do to celebrate? I went to the DMV. As of today, my official home address is Lafayette, LA.

I suppose it's all worked out pretty well for me. I have a smart sexy boyfriend here. We have an amazing four bedroom house smack in the middle of town in what was recently described in a local magazine article as 'an old obscure' neighborhood. My job's going well. Our dogs are adorable (even if they mostly hate each other). And in less than 36 hours, we leave for 8 days on a small yacht boating the Florida coast from Ft Lauderdale to South Beach to Key West and back again.

I can't even imagine what my life would be had I not met Don and moved to Lafayette, considering that in this past year, my old apartment burned down, my dog died and my New Orleans store was closed for 6 months after the hurricane, not to mention the utter and still lasting devastation of New Orleans...

Yep... no complaints here... (well, except for the fact that the new dog is currently chewing on my foot as I type this...)

I promise I'll get around to posting something of substance again soon...

My blog got me through the storms... i was able to externalize a lot of my internal madness during that period by madly typing away to the world things that I wasn't able to say to my housemates at the time. And things that we were all saying.

But then I hit a period where I really didn't want to talk about it, write about it, look at pictures of or in any way acknowledge what we had been through, what we are still going through and what the future holds for NOLA.

We spent a weekend in the city recently and it made things both better and worse for me. I very much needed to be in the city, to see it with my own eyes again. And it helped. But it also hurt. At least I can look at pictures of the aftermath now without immediately bursting into tears.

I'm terrified though. Without continued and massive support, New Orleans is not going to be there anymore. The government is going back on their promises, shuffling us under the rug. The rest of the country is forgetting, they think of it as something that happened, not something that is happening. Large portions of the city are in danger of never being anything close to what they were again. There are miles and miles and miles of people's home that are just completely destroyed.

Hmm... ok... I'll continue this later.

Just... don't forget about New Orleans...

A few minutes ago I was looking at my blog from last year and I realized that Don and I met a year ago today... So, today... I bring you classic on tender hooks... this is a post I wrote about Don last November...


So... a little over a month ago, I mentioned going to my friend Kris' birthday party in Lafayette. I briefly mentioned meeting someone new at the party.

A couple of weeks ago, he came to New Orleans and spent a really incredible evening with me, going to dinner, attending a play, going out for drinks and meeting quite a few of my friends over the course of the evening. A really great nite, all in all.

This past weekend, I spent four days in Lafayette. And I didn't stay with Kris & Victor.

Over the course of the weekend, I found myself not only falling very hard for a guy, but for his culture and his city as well. This is potentially big. It's one of those things that comes along when you're not expecting it at all. It's one of those things where you find someone who's completely outside of the mold of your expectations of what you think you might be looking for, but, somehow, it's also ten times better than what you thought you were looking for.

What I know is that it's exactly 25 days until I get to see him again. I know I need to change my cellular plan and probably my provider, based on the number of cellular minutes I've burned in the past two days. I know that I've always advised all of my friends against relationships that involve distance, but I'm learning that sometimes the heart thinks otherwise. I know that I'm feeling things inside my heart and my brain that I haven't felt in ages.

I know that I want to try to make the best of this. I know that this situation wants me to make the best of myself.

I know that right now... I'm smiling.

Apologies for not posting sooner, but we're all fine here in Lafayette. We got lots of wind and rain. Areas around us are experiencing flooding, but rest assured that we're high and dry. We've got lots of cleaning up to do in the yard, but nothing too major.

My store didn't fare as well, experiencing some relatively severe roof leaks. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday dealing with that and will be spending a good amount of my day today doing likewise.

Oh the joys of dealing with wet books and collapsed ceiling tiles...

More later... thanks for the good thoughts...

Since Chris asked...

Yup, we're hunkered down. Our little commune of five people, six dogs and three cats are holding fast here in Lafayette. There's a new update coming in about 20 minutes, but as of now the eye of the storm should be a significant distance from us when it comes onshore. We're told to expect winds of 40-60 mph and a hell of a lot of rain. The rain has already started in spades... and the wind has steadily built up from breezes last night to something probably around 25 mph now.

Am I nervous? A little... hurricanes almost always seem to go a bit eastward at the last moment.

But, all in all... we should be fine. We have food, (scented) candles, water, etc etc.

I think the possibility of us losing power by the morning is extremely high. And I don't know if Don and his mom will be able to survive living in a house with three guys DTing for internet access...

Well.. here we go again...

It looks like Rita is most likely heading towards Galveston. But, she's big. And we're on the bad side. And hurricanes just love to take that last minute move to the right.

For now, we're assuming we're going to be okay, but we're watching it closely. At the least, we're going to be in for a lot of rain this weekend. Hopefully nothing worse...

And now we have evacuees coming to us from the west. So, we're filling our townhouse up again.

Hopefully W is praying for us...

This is where I lived the past five years... five of the happiest years of my life...

My friend Jeremy sent me the pic tonite. And I'm stunned. It doesn't look real... it can't be...

And the worst part was having to call my friend Lorna, who still lived upstairs on the left side, and tell her to check her email for the pictures... I never want to have to do anything like that again in my life.

I know I'm incredibly fortunate. I met Don at a party almost a year ago and fell so much in love that I left the city I thought I'd never leave. But... still... it ain't easy to look at that picture... what might have been.. what is...

*sigh*

I haven't written much because it turned into sort of a rough week. I went from seeing that picture of a body two blocks from my old apartment building to seeing CNN footage the next day of the block that I lived on for the last five years burning.

I'd thought I was past the worst of the shock, but that put me into a 24 hour tailspin of depression. I guess it just made it all a lot more personal. One of my biggest fears after the flooding was that the city was going to burn. Seeing the neighborhood I lived in until 5 months ago on fire made my fears a bit too real.

I'm still not completely sure if my building burned. Exact addresses are hard to come by right now. If anyone finds any exact information about the fires on Josephine Street, I'd appreciate an email.

One of my dear friends, Lorna, still lived in one of the upstairs apartments. And most everyone she owns was/is there. I've been in contact with her. She's safe in St Louis. But, I can't bring myself to call or email her about this until I know for sure what happened.

Richard and Don's sister, Roxanne, took Don's mom into Metairie to her apartment. It had evidently flooded with a few inches of water. They cleaned the major things (refrigerator) that needed to be done immediately and salvaged what they could fit into the truck. Oddly, it seemed to consist mainly of clothes, VHS tape, her furs and her 'jewels.' She was quite shaken by the whole event.

Anyways... life goes on here in our compound...

You may or may not have seen this photo in the media over the past couple of days. I'd noticed it, but in the midst of such a deluge of images and information over the past week, it didn't stand out that much to me.

And then last night, I read a short paragraph about the photo.

"In New Orleans' Garden District, a woman's body lay at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street — a business area with antique shops on the edge of blighted housing. The body had been there since at least Wednesday. As days passed, people covered the corpse with blankets or plasticIn New Orleans' Garden District, a woman's body lay at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street — a business area with antique shops on the edge of blighted housing. The body had been there since at least Wednesday. As days passed, people covered the corpse with blankets or plastic."

Jackson and Magazine. Jackson and Magazine. Jackson and Magazine.

Suddenly I couldn't process it... that's two block from where I lived the past five years. Two blocks. It's a corner I walked by hundreds of times. It's my neighborhood. A dead body laying on the street for days. In my neighborhood.

Last year, when Ivan was headed towards New Orleans, almost everyone I knew evacuated New Orleans. I stayed.

The night before the storm came onto land, when we still weren't certain if it was going to hit us or not, I slowly started to freak out a little bit. I dealt with it by getting a little drunk and then going a block down my street and befriending the group of older black ladies who were hanging out outside of their Section 8 apartment building. They stayed because they had no where to go, no money to travel with, no transportation of their own.

I found myself trying to remember if any of them was named Vera last night. I can't imagine how they fared at the Convention Center, which I have to imagine became their shelter. I wonder where they are now.

My neighborhood. In my neighborhood... it's made it all a little more raw again for me.

One thing I haven't written much about is the response of my employer. Barnes and Noble has completely exceeded any expectation I had of how they would respond. There are 300 booksellers affected by the hurricane and 13 stores, including the college stores and B. Daltons.

They've put together teams of people to deal with the crisis. And they're doing an amazing job. Everyone of those 300 booksellers is getting paid indefinitely. If they needed more money immediately, it was provided. They have people trying to locate housing for them. They have trucks of supplies heading here, not only for the booksellers but for other people in the affected areas.

The uppermost people in the company are in constant contact with people in the local area.

I personally made three suggestions to my Regional Director and every one of them was put into place within hours, one of them ten minutes after I emailed her the suggestion.

I am so grateful to have such an amazing employer and will be personally letting many of them know this at the appropriate time, once we're past the worst of the crisis.

If you know anyone who is one of these booksellers who hasn't been in contact with the company yet, have them call 1-800-799-5335 immediately.

I'm terribly sorry that i haven't updated all day, but I worked today and we've had a lot going on around here tonight. I've barely looked at the news today, so I don't really know what's going on in the city... and I don't want to know right now...

I got off work around 7 tonight and came home to a relatively saner home. I think we're all starting to slip back into something slightly closer to normal. We won't reach actual normal for months... but it's a start...

I think everyone's settling into the realization that our living situation is one that's going to exist for weeks, probably months... and I think our guests are starting to get a little more comfortable with that fact. I hope so...

Most of the gang gathered tonight for curried pasta and barbecued chicken... and liquor..

In the midst of it, a friend of Don's nephew, Ashley, and her mom arrived, fresh from their rescue from five days in Charity Hospital. Trust me.. they had some stories...

Richard that his friend, Martin was also in town, so I insisted that he bring him over for a bit as well.

We sat around drinking, with a brief phone interval for me with my friend Jonathan... currently in Houston, until we graduated to absinthe.

Geez... the screen of my laptop is soooo pretty tonight...

Where the fuck is the federal government? Are they just going to sit on their asses while the people trapped in the city slowly die off? Are they willing to let what's left of the city burn?

This is a disgrace. Our president, who I admit I've never liked, has offered us no real solutions or information. Where's the water the people in the city need? Where's food? Where are the troops? Oh yeah... they're in Iraq, securing the oil supply.

That's all we seem to hear from the feds, oil oil oii.. gas gas gas...

I'm sorry, but i don't care if the rest of America has to pay $6.00 a gallon for gas. Get my people out of my city. Save my fucking city.

DO SOMETHING.

two great moments in our life...

don's sister and her husband arrived tonight... after spending 3 days on the westbank of the post hurricane city... they're amazing heroes... they cooked everything they had and fed people less fortunate than them before they left town...

and... when don took them to our empty townhouse to set them up in their new temporary home, he finally found Sam, his cat who disappeared from the townhouse the night before we moved... we've been horribly worried about her ever since.. and now she's home...

and i have lots of info about Barnes and Noble employees that i used to work with... more on that tomorrow morning when i'm a bit more coherent...

random moments from my life...

going to Target yesterday with Richard and pulling out my checkbook to pay and having this momentary flash of panic thinking, "they're not gonna take my check, it and my license have a New Orleans address"

going to buy cigarettes earlier (because I'm up to two packs a day right now, and I was jonesing for my next one, getting into the car afterwards and putting the two packs i bought down next to the full pack that had been sitting on my car seat the whole time...

anyways... i'm off to work and won't post again until after midnight...

Hmm... I just realized how utterly accurate the title of my blog is right now...

An interesting side effect of a house full of people in crisis mode who are all armed with wireless laptops is that we communicate some of our more serious feelings to one another through our blogs and some of the minor things by Instant Messenger.

I just read Richard's blog... and even though I've said it to him verbally many times already, I hope he understands that I don't know if I would have made it through the past several days in anything resembling a sane state if he and Jonno had not come to stay with us. Not knowing where a major portion of your friends are during a crisi like this is unbearable at times, and knowing that two of them are safe in your house is a great comfort. And that we are completely prepared to take care of them for indefinitely. If they tried to pull up stakes and leave anytime even relatively soon, I'd be extremely upset.

And while I've been well aware that Richard has been going a bit insane inside his head, he and my partner Don have been the foundation of our household for the past couple of days. They're the sensible ones.

And while I've been friends with both Jonno & Richard for several years, I haven't really known Richard as well as I know Jonno. And it's been a pleasure to find out that he's every bit the amazing person I thought he was.

So, Richard... I know I can't stop you from being sorry... just know that Don and I are both extremely happy to have you both for weeks on end.

Don just called me from his business to tell us all to be extremely careful when we go out because there have been multiple armed robberies around the city of Lafayette today.

*sigh*

Ok.. one thing I wrote in haste that i have to reconsider was saying i wish they'd shoot the looters.

There are different levels to the whole looting situation. While I'm horribly angry about the people taking luxury items and brandishing (and using) guns, I understand the need to find the things you need for basic survival.

Ok.. so everyone in our house isn't completely freaked out... some are getting more sleep than others...

More good news... i sent my friend Jill a text message asking about her mother who I was pretty sure had remained in Lakeview, one of the most flooded areas, and she replied "EVAC TO WA PARISH & HEARD FROM HER YEST... FINALLY".

This is how we communicate in South Lousiana now in little snippets of text that you may get instantly or that may arrive a day later. Sometimes if you're persistent and keep redialing a number repeatedly for minutes you actually get to talk to someone. And that's only if you're lucky enough to be in an area where you can charge your cellphone.

It's a little intimidating to wake up and discover that I've been linked in the British news media. I don't feel like I've been saying anything of much substance beyond doing some cathartic rambling...

The national news channels are very hard to watch right now. I'm sensing a turn towards blame... to city officials and the people of New Orleans. Meanwhile, where are the mentions that since the start of the war in Iraq, George W has consistently slashed every bit of funding we've needed or requested for building more protections for the city or even doing studies on the impact of a storm like the one we've just had. There are mentions in the print and internet media, but they're few and far between.

I also woke up to a new text message on my phone confirming that two more of my friends are safe in Baton Rouge. That's something good...

The news is so depressing at this point. Now that the mayor has declared martial law, I honestly hope they start shooting the looters on sight. This is ridiculous... civilazation breaks down this easily?

Don's sister and her husband are still in Algiers. I hope to god they finally make it up here tomorrow. Their son is definitely coming over to us from Baton Rouge tomorrow.

Dave, the ex, and his friends made it in from Atlanta tonight and are staying at my friends Kris & Victor's home. I think they're a bit perplexed about why they returned to Louisiana so soon now that they realize that it's probably going to be weeks before they'll be able to return to the city. Robert left us tonight, to spend a night at Kris & Victor's also before driving home to his parents' home in South Carolina.

I finally talked to my friend Jonathan tonight also. He's in Houston and it sounds l ike he's probably going to stay there permanently. He hasn't heard from our friend Kris, who stayed in one of the harder hit areas, either. He called me a second time later tonight and asked us to start looking for a rental for his parents who are thinking of relocating temporarily to Lafayette.

I also managed to get through a second time to Jinger, one of the employees of the Metairie B&N, who's staying in Baton Rouge. She had info about two more friends of mine who are safe. I think the two of us took a lot of comfort in our conversation. Right now, it's just really great to be able to talk to any of your friends from New Orleans.

I lasted all of an hour and a half at work before I had a major panic attack in the middle of the store. I managed to find out a bit of info about a few people that work at the 4 Barnes & Noble stores in the damage zone. I managed to get one of the employees of the Metairie store (where I worked for five years until six months ago) on the phone and we were both in tears before we got off the phone. That store has around 80 employees, about 3/4th of which I know very well. And I only know for sure that three of them are safe. We're terribly worried about the mother of one of our co-workers who remained in Lakeview during the storm.

I hope other major corporate employers follow the lead of B&N, who are evidently going to take very good care of their employees during this crisis. I was completely awed by the amount of financial support they're willing to provide.

I just woke up and there's not a lot more info since last nite. We have no idea if there's flooding or the amount of it near Richard & Jonno's and Robert's homes. Don's sister and her husband should be leaving Algiers (on the Westbank of NOLA) today or tomorrow to come stay in our townhouse. My friends Tanner and Vic are making their way back from Houston today and we've found them housing with other friends of ours here in Lafayette.

This is all just so surreal. I don't think I had mentioned that our friend Roger here in Lafayette had been unable to find out anything about his parents who lived in Lakeview, each of them in their 80s. We found out this morning that they were rescued yesterday. They had to go to the attic of their home and managed to knock a vent out, but were unable to break a whole in the roof. When a rescue boat got to them, they had to swim back down through their flooded house and out the door to the boat. It's sooo Shelley Winters in Poseidon Adventure... Did i mention the word surreal already?

I have to go to work shortly, so I won't be updating again until after 7pm central.

It's almost midnight and Jonno and I are sitting in my backyard, reading what news we can find, parsing through the national media... checking the local media... etc etc...

We must be an odd sight, sitting at the table in my rather dark backyard, lit only by our laptops...

I finally was able to get calls through to my mom and my sister a couple of hours ago. My sister left early this morning and braved flooded streets with fallen trees to drive the hour or so to find out how my mom was faring. When she got there my 80 year old mother was in the yard on her riding lawn mower tied to a small fallen tree that she was trying to move. That's my mom... she's a tough one... My sister said that it looked like a bomb had exploded on the two acres that my mother lives on. There were ten trees fallen and all of the standing trees had lost all of their leaves. Remarkably her house was untouched. And, remember, my mom lives over an hour from where the eye of the storm went through.

She doesn't have electricity or running water, but she refused to leave to go to my sister's house. But, my sister is going back tomorrow and she's not taking no for an answer.

Scary news now... the WWL webpage is saying that the efforts to seal the break in the levee have failed and that they expect the pumps in the area to fail soon. Within the next 12-15 hours 9 feet of water is expected througout the Eastbank.

I honestly don't know how Richard, Jonno & Robert are holding themselves together. I've got a lot of admiration for them, because if I still lived there I'd be a complete basket case right now. I'm a borderline basket case as it is... Don just came outside to tell me that his mother finally really understands that she's pretty much lost everything in her apartment. He's taking her to the front swing to talk. She doesn't have flood insurance and she didn't bring much of anything here with her. I thought it was weirdly endearing earlier when she said... "but.. I left two fur coats and all my jewels there."

My head is spinning with so many different things right now. I have so many friends in NOLA who live paycheck to paycheck. The money in their pockets right now is all they have. They can't go back to the city for at least a week. Their homes are probably destroyed. And I don't think a lot of people are going to be buying drinks in bars, going out for sushi, getting the hair colored, etc anytime soon...

I feel like we're sitting on top of a gigantic yo-yo... everytime we think things are getting better, it seems like they get ten times worse...

Ok... HUGE NEWS! Jonno just upgraded my house to wireless internet! We've gone from sitting around in clusters with our cellphones clutched in our hands to sitting around with our laptops in our laps...

If you've been trying to get any of us on the phone, cellphone service is very very sketchy, if not almost non-existent. I don't think it helps that most of us have New Orleans area codes, including myself even though I moved away 6 months ago.

For those who know me and my friends outside of the Jonno/Richard circle... Jonathan is in Houston with his family... Robert is here with me... Dave is in Atlanta, probably getting lots of quality time with Bud... Tanner and Vic are in Houston, but are making their way back to Lafayette, we're gonna put them up with some friends... We haven't heard from Kris (long hair Kris) yet, and as far as we know he stayed on the Northshore during the storm...

Ok.. so here's the deal. Don't believe the national media stories of how lucky New Orleans is... luck is relative. Yes, the city wasn't completely destroyed, but...

From the info we're managing to gather now, the city has been dealt a crippling blow. As of earlier tonight, 80% of the city was flooded, with waters still rising in many areas because of broken levees and broken pumps. One of the major highways into the city has a large bridge which we call the Twin Spans. It's damaged to the point that it will have to be completely replaced. There are lots of vague reports of bodies floating in water and I've gone from thinking them as hysterical rumor to feeling pretty sure that we're going to see a rapidly escalating death toll over the next few days. Residents are probably not going to be allowed back into the city for a week. City officials are saying it's going to be 4 to 6 weeks until power is restored to the entire city and I imagine it's going to be days before a serious effort to start the process starts.

We're just trying to process the toll to individuals, to the city, to the state, to the country. New Orleans is based on a tourist economy... how long before they'll come back? The state gets a lot of money from NO taxes. People's homes are totally destroyed or significantly damaged. How can the Saints play in the Superdome when part of the roof is missing? New Orleans is one of the major port cities of the US... are the ports still there? How's this going to effect the national economy?

I expect that Richard and Jonno, along with Don's mom and our friend Robert will be our guests through the weekend if not for another week or more. They're feeling awkward about it, but their presence is a great comfort to me, because I have so many friends in New Orleans who I'm worried about. But, I have these guys here in front of me and I know they're okay.

We're all freaked out quite a bit. We'll deal, but it's really really weird trying to absorb what's happened to our beloved city.

For now, our guests are left wondering about their homes. Don's sister and her husband stayed in Algiers (the Westbank of New Orleans) and we haven't been able to contact them since 8 am this morning during the beginning of the storm. My mom is alone in Livingston Parish, far from New Orleans, but in an area that was also hit relatively hard and we haven't been able to contact her since noon today and a major band of storms went through the area about an hour later. Cellphones barely work. Land phones barely work. Text messages are a little more successful, but not always.

It's scary, folks.

Ok.. requests for updates heard...

Here in Lafayette, we didn't get anything more than a nice windy day with a little rain. We had an extremely stressful evening last night watching a little a bit too much weather info on tv... well, and trying to watch the dreadful premier of Rome probably didn't help...

We really don't know much more about the state of New Orleans than what you can read on the Web. We've heard from second hand sources that the French Quarter is in pretty good shape. We've also heard that Don's mom's apartment may have 4 feet of water in it, but we're really not sure... and we're not telling her yet. Don was able to talk to his sister and her husband this morning around 8:30 am when the storm was beginning but we haven't been able to get in touch with them since. The last contact with my mother, who is in Livingston Parish, which took a pretty decent hit was around noon and a pretty significant amount of bad weather went through her area about an hour after that. However, phone lines, land and cellular, are pretty much useless from Baton Rouge well into Mississippi. I'm sure we'll get word within hours or days.

Richard & Jonno don't know much of anything about their neighborhood or house, but I think we're all feeling like the Marigny may be okay. They'll probably be with us at least another 2 days. I hate to get them here under such circumstances but I'm thrilled to get to spend time with them. Tomorrow's the first day I'll be off work since they got here.. and they brought Absinthe... woot!

More later...

Okey doke... how bout some comments... tell us how much you love us... how concerned you are... etc etc...

Well... I suppose I should post something since Richard sent most of you this way...

For those of you who already know me, worry not... I left New Orleans 6 months ago, remember? Don and I moved into our new 4 bedroom house last weekend. Fortunate timing, since it enabled us to work the phones yesterday encouraging friends and family to evacuate New Orleans to come stay with us.

We've got 4 house guests (down from 6 last nite) and 4 extra dogs (down from 6 last nite) and 2 cats here staying with us.

We all feel pretty confident that we're barely going to feel any impact of the storm here in Acadiana, but we're all very very very worried about New Orleans. Don's sister and her husband have refused to leave the Westbank, which is on the high side of the river, and we're not terribly happy about that. And I haven't been able to get in touch with Poppy and her husband, and she indicated on her last livejournal posts that they weren't leaving the city either. But... after spending several hours making myself physically ill worrying about them and the city that I love so much, I've decided to stop... They're adults, they've made their decisions and I'm not doing myself any good thinking about it so much.

Anyways... we're about to grill... and Aunt Sassy will be on soon...

More later...

Another angle...

So... I know it's not a very good picture... but barring any unseen disasters... this is where Don & I will be living by the end of next month.

Yes, Drew, you DO need to say more...

AIM IM with zeddnola
8:56 AM

DAVE: Wait... do you hear that? What's that flushing sound?

DREW: Hear what?

DAVE: Oh, it's your freedom going down the toilet.

DREW: Sad little monkey. How I grieve for your rapidly fading youth.

DAVE: I grieve more for the death of your soul.

DREW: Oh... by the way, I called my sister last night and said, "So, you know I'm gay, right?"

DAVE: So you told her you were buying a house with another man?

DREW: And her response is... "Oh, he sells expensive furniture... maybe he can give me some decorating tips." *sigh*

DAVE: LOL

DREW: She told me that she's always been pretty sure. And I love this part. She actually quit going to her Sunday school class a couple of years ago because they were talking about homosexuality (Baptists, remember...) and most of the people in it were all, "They're damned!" I thought that was sweet.

DAVE: Wait. Your sister was still going to Sunday school?

DREW: Baptists love Sunday school.

DAVE: I know, but I thought that was only until you were about 12.

DREW: You go to Sunday school before the church service.

DAVE: Jesus, don't they get enough of that shit in church?

DREW: I mean, I guess it makes sense. It's a forum to actually have discussions, versus the church service where you're just preached at.

DAVE: So did your sister speak up and say "I love my gay brother"?

DREW: Well, she wasn't 100% sure then, but she did speak up and say that she disagreed cuz people were saying they'd throw people out of their family and she was appalled.

DAVE: Well, that is what Jesus would do.

DRUNK BLOG!

so... today... Don and I made a bid on a house we want to buy... a house i'll be crushed if we don't get... and i called my sister and said, "so... you know i'm gay, right?"...

do i need to say more????

So... I guess I should mention that there's going to be a slight format change here... Dave was kind enough to step in and guest blog for me earlier this year and I've decided to let him keep his posting privileges. Dave's blog is not so much a straight forward regular every day blog. He came up with a rather unique format which totally works, but I know once in a while he'd like to rant about something, so I'm gonna give him a forum. And I hope that the more interactive format will keep me a little more interested in regularly maintaining my blog.

So, let's see what happens when two ex-boyfriends living in seperate cities try to live in the same webspace...

What can you expect from me in the future? My thoughts about Lafayette, LA, my new homebase (and it ain't gonna be all positive, boys & girls)... music music music (i'm a musical sponge and fiend)... general pop culture musings... comic book reviews, maybe... and lots of bitching...

Dave here with On Tender Hooks' first reader poll, which arose from a raging debate between Drew and myself. Perhaps not surprisingly, the question is about Batman. Which way does he swing--Republican or Democrat? Sure, he's filthy rich and tough on crime and all, but then again maybe that's too obvious a stereotype in this case. Readers, if any of you are still out there, what do you think?

Of course the most important news of the moment is last week's release of Tales From the Turnpike House by Saint Etienne. It's been a couple of years since the last album, Finisterre, and the wait has been excruciating.

I worship Saint Etienne like no other band. Since the day I first heard a vinyl 12 inch single of Only Love Can Break Your Heart, I've been theirs completely and utterly. They're THE BAND for me.

The new album is, IMO, absolutely gorgeous (with one song proving the exception). It's their first concept album. The songs all revolve around the occupants of a rooming house. They've gotten a bit of criticism for this, but I think they pulled it off wonderfully. It's mostly downtempo, except for Stars Above Us and A Good Thing, which have a bit more of a dance beat. There is one song, Relocate, however that I hate so much I reburnt the CD without it and took it out of my iTunes playlist. I can't even go into what it makes it so awful... it just is... *shudder*... ok... it's the guest vocalist and the cutesy setup of the song... *shudder*

Ooook... I'm back!

So, here's the dealio... I mentioned major changes in my life.

I've left New Orleans for my new home in Lafayette, Louisiana. I never would have thought in a million years that I'd give up New Orleans to move to Cajun swamp country. But I did.

Love does funny things to ya, huh?

When I met Don last year, I was pretty much sold from the night I met him. And we tried the medium distance relationship thing for months. It involved a lot of phone calls and Don driving to New Orleans 2 or 3 times a month. But, it wasn't enough.

So, very unexpectedly and very quickly, an opportunity to transfer to Lafayette (where Don lives) with my company came up. Within, 24 hours, Don found me an apartment that he described as "nice, but it's all about the neighborhood, not the apartment." The apartment turned out to be an amazing apartment with an amazing yard in an amazing neighborhood. And two weeks later, I moved to Lafayette.

And everything is working out just peachy... more details soon...

Ok... one more thing... all of my contact info as far as email will be changing in the next couple of days.

I'll still be available at tenderhooksDELETE@gmail.com, but keep the emails short.. those go to my phone as well.

And I WILL NEVER be a customer of Earthlink again. They can so GET ROYALLY fucked. The worst customer service I've ever experienced... of course, the fact that all of their customer service is now located in the Phillipines probably has something to do with that...

oh yeah.. and all the images on my blog will be gone shortly also, i think...

Just a quick update...

HUGE changes are afoot personally... and I expect that I'll relaunch my blog with a bit more content and perhaps a new look come sometime in April...

honestly, right now... i'm just consumed by life and by changes in my life to even attempt to relate a single thing to you...

so.. seriously.. check back in April...

"It's time to prove to your friends that you're worth a damn. Sometimes, that means dying. Sometimes, it means killing a whole lot of people."

Dang, the Sin City trailer gives me a stiffy.

Yeah, yeah, Drew, 40th birthday, wish list, got it.

I will now break my silence to remind you that next Wednesday... i will turn 40!

Notice the link to my Amazon wishlist to the left...

Dave here.
So Mardi Gras has been relatively quiet and uneventful so far, at least for me, which is why this weekmy own blog features some old stuff I wrote about Haiti last year instead of stories about doing mushrooms, befriending a morbidly obese drag queen named "Liz Trailer" who pumped tequila shots down my throat from a big green bug-poison sprayer. and riding a vintage silver Huffy Stingray down Rampart Street with no pants on. Not that I did anything like that last time I was here for Mardi Gras.

One of the things that's been nice about Mardi Gras is that I've been using Drew's little circle of friends as a sort of surrogate posse since I came back to New Orleans, and they've all been nice enough to tolerate my presence for the most part. It's always a lot more fun to walk into a bar when you know there's a chance you might actually know someone there.

Anyway, it's noon, I'm getting out of work early, and I need to come up with a Mardi Gras costume from scratch between now and tomorrow morning. Preferably something made up entirely of household items I already have in the junk drawer in my kitchen. You may laugh, but I once won a bar tab for a costume I made from nothing but duct tape and a headlamp...

All right, first of all, Drew has been very remiss in not mentioning that House Of Flying Daggers may not be the best kung-fu movie ever made, but it may very well be the best movie title ever. Second, the Krewe De Vieux parade was apeshit crazy fun even though it was way too short. Any parade where straight guys in jockstraps invite me to feel their bare asses is okay by me. Drew was so engrossed in the goings-on that I don't think he even mentioned the new boyfriend once all evening.

Really? Jefferson Davis? I could have sworn you said Andrew Jackson. I guess that story wasn't as interesting as I thought. But the important thing is that you should stop smoking.

ok... for the record... it was Jefferson Davis, not Andrew Jackson...

All right. Assuming there's anyone who hasn't by now
given up on checking Drew's blog every week or so in
the vain hope that he might have written something
more substantial than a vague reference to some
obscure British TV show that no one in their right
mind but Drew himself would watch, I have taken it
upon myself to write this, On Tender Hooks' first ever
guest entry.

Now, I happen to know Drew well enough to know that he
has a much more interesting life than one might expect
from the current dearth of blog entries. Let's not
forget this is the man who once earned the nickname
"Zipper" and inspired a character in a Poppy Z. Brite
story just by taking a sip of Absinthe. He just
doesn't take the time to write about the good stuff
anymore. Here's another example: last week he came
home from a trip to Lafayette and found an authentic
letter handwritten by Andrew Jackson and encased in
plastic on his back porch. Yes, Andrew Jackson, the
president on the 20 dollar bill. On his back porch.
And upon investigation it turned out that the
ownership of said document was in dispute. It was
quite a story. Most bloggers would have turned it into
a multi-entry epic. Does our Drew even consider this
worthy of mentioning? Apparently not.

At least there have been a few sporadic posts about
the new boyfriend, even if they have been sorely
lacking in details. Which is a shame, because the new
boyfriend is causing Drew to act uncharacteristically
goofy and lovesick, which entertains me to no end, and
it seems like a shame not to share more of this sort
of thing with his readers. I'll have to leave that
much to him, though, but I will say for the record
that I think the new boyfriend is a great guy, he's
good for Drew, and I couldn't be happier that they
found each other. Now if Drew would just stop smoking,
everything would be great. Meanwhile, here's 5 facts
about Drew you may or may not know:

1. He makes the most incredible macaroni and cheese
I've ever eaten, although he hasn't done so in quite a
while.

2. He worked in a New Age bookstore for years, even
though he's never believed in any of that horseshit.

3. He was once planning to get a tattoo of Superman's
dog, Krypto, but I stole his idea and did it first.

4. The one thing he did that drove me insane when we
lived together was when he was reading a magazine or
newspaper, he would loudly say "Huh... hmmm... how
interesting" over and over until I would finally snap
and say "Well spit it the fuck out!!!"

5. He hates camping. Or anything outdoorsy for that
matter.

All right, so the blog has been updated, for now.
Watch for future installments as time allows. And be
sure to read my blog, "I Just Want To Be A Tugboat
Captain", which you can link to on the left (under
"Dave").

ok, guys... really, i'm sorry... the deal is...

i'm madly passionately utterly immersed in love... i'm crazy about this guy.. he's crazy about me... and lately I just don't feel much need to write about much of anything cuz I guess I'm just too busy living my life...

i'll try once in a while, i swear... i totally need to let you know what the albums of 2004 were, i know... but... seriously...

i'm mad crazy immersed in a total love situation...

i have to speculate that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay...

Merry Fucking White Christmas!

I woke up this morning ready to travel to hang out with my family for Christmas Day only to discover that the interstate system was closed due to sleet and icy overpasses. But... I got to spend the day with my boyfriend and his family who took me in for the day.

And... for the first time in fifty years... it snowed in New Orleans for Christmas. It's amazing how much sheer joy this created for everyone in the city. It was impossible not to have a huge honking smile in your face in this city today.

I'm gonna go collapse on my bed and snuggle with my guy now... hope you're all having as beautiful a day as I had...

Look at all the cake and presents, Fiona

Oh geez... Spooks... what you do to me... I seriously don't think I've ever seen a more shocking or emotionally draining scene in any other tv show ever than i just saw in the last episode of this season of Spooks...

oh geez... I need tissues...

The weird thing about television is that just when a show has gone from a creative peak to an absolute nadir is that it can then shock you midway through it's third season and have one of it's best episodes ever.

Spooks aka MI5, in the US on A&E, is one of my guilty pleasures. The first two seasons were completely riveting. The third started rather well, but then went limp and boring. Two of the three main actors had decided to move on and the storytelling seemed to limp along until they were disposed of, but... they're gone now. And the episode eight was right up there with the best of the first two seasons. I'll be holding my breath until next week...

Gee, I'm sorry, you pretentious Pitchfork indie prat, but everyone I know that heard this album loves it. You obviously don't 'get' it. Too straight perhaps? Too afraid to like bubblegum pop music maybe?

And Bubble Pop Electric is the song I keep skipping over cuz I find it annoying and somewhat out of place on an otherwise fantastic pop album.

Meh meh meh...

WANT WANT WANT!!!

So... a little over a month ago, I mentioned going to my friend Kris' birthday party in Lafayette. I briefly mentioned meeting someone new at the party.

A couple of weeks ago, he came to New Orleans and spent a really incredible evening with me, going to dinner, attending a play, going out for drinks and meeting quite a few of my friends over the course of the evening. A really great nite, all in all.

This past weekend, I spent four days in Lafayette. And I didn't stay with Kris & Victor.

Over the course of the weekend, I found myself not only falling very hard for a guy, but for his culture and his city as well. This is potentially big. It's one of those things that comes along when you're not expecting it at all. It's one of those things where you find someone who's completely outside of the mold of your expectations of what you think you might be looking for, but, somehow, it's also ten times better than what you thought you were looking for.

What I know is that it's exactly 25 days until I get to see him again. I know I need to change my cellular plan and probably my provider, based on the number of cellular minutes I've burned in the past two days. I know that I've always advised all of my friends against relationships that involve distance, but I'm learning that sometimes the heart thinks otherwise. I know that I'm feeling things inside my heart and my brain that I haven't felt in ages.

I know that I want to try to make the best of this. I know that this situation wants me to make the best of myself.

I know that right now... I'm smiling.

The video for Mosh has me reevaluating my feelings about Eminem a bit... although I wish he'd gotten it out there in time to perhaps actually encouraged a few people to have registered to vote when they still could have...

anyways... Fuck Bush indeed...

This is the hottest sexiest sweetest thing I've read in a very long time... (thanks to PJ for the heads up...)

omg... and I got the new STARS album, Set Yourself on Fire, today!

It's FUCKING AMAZING, as I knew it would be. You can order from the Arts & Crafts Store. It's only out in Canada so far... but it's cheap!

I need to write about this past weekend also...

My friend, Kris, had his 40th birthday party this past weekend in Lafayette. Dave (the ex) and I drove over in the midst of the tropical depression to attend. Kris and his significant other, Victor, were incredibly gracious hosts. When I went to print the directions to drive there, I discovered they also contained a confirmation number for a hotel room that they had reserved and prepaid for us, along with a note stating there could be no discussion about the fact the room being paid. (Hah... like I'd argue about that!)

The drive over with Dave was quite nice. He just got back to New Orleans this week after spending a few months travelling, reaquainting himself with the States after his two years in the Dominican Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer. He's thinking of settling back in NOLA for a while and attending nursing school. An idea that I think is fucking fantastic.

So, we got to Lafayette and settled in our rooms just in time for the shuttle to arrive to pick us up. Yep... the shuttle. Victor drove over and picked up those of us who were staying in the hotel.

The party itself was a fucking blast. I really had no idea that I'd be seeing so many faces from my past, friends from 10-20 years ago. There was a lot of hugging and laughing. And there were new friends to make as well.

I was quite happy to drink myself a wee bit silly on Glenlivet and waters, interspersed with a couple of glasses of Veuve Cliquot. Yeah... they had a very nicely stocked bar also.

But... the best part was just hanging out with Kris, Victor, Chad, Buffy, Wende, Dave, Stacey, Jared, Michelle and a couple of other old friends whose names I'm brainfreezing on right this moment. Well... there was another really good part also... a new friend who I met midway through the party who may have monopolized the rest of my evening perhaps (and the greater part of the rest of the weekend...). You're not getting any more info on that... except that I certainly hope to see him again when time permits... and, gee.. um... to mention that maybe they shouldn't have gotten me a hotel room after all, since I didn't sleep in it...

When I arrived home from work today, I had an email from Poppy, asking me if the story she just posted on her website could possibly be true. I immediately doubted that it could be true. So, I did something that couldn't possibly have ever occurred to anyone else to do... I picked up the phone and called all the local B&N stores and asked to check to see if they had the book in stock.

Well, golly gee... of the four stores in the New Orleans/Baton Rouge area, two of them had the book in stock. Those two being the larger more urban stores as opposed to the much smaller other two.

And unless I missed a memo about the annexation of New Orleans by New York or California, I'm thinking that this book has evidently been stocked in Barnes & Noble stores outside of those two states.

I'm quite vexed by lefty goths deciding that the Evil Corporation that is B&N is out to get them considering the fact that of late, the right wing fringe-types spend a lot of time obsessing over the fact that we're evidently trying to keep conservative books out of the hands of the public.

Let's review a couple of facts. B&N as a chain is very committed to making any book that you want available to you. Censorship of any type simply isn't part of the culture of the stores. Almost every book published makes it onto our shelves. Do a few slip between the cracks? Sure. Does every book make it into every store? Nope. The larger, two (or more) level stores get a much larger selection than the smaller one level stores.

Shockingly, my store even employs a goth and a couple of near-goths. And every Friday evening, a local group of them meet outside our cafe for coffee (which I'm pretty sure they purchase instead of stealing).

And the idea that a book would not be stocked because it would be stolen is ridiculous. I'm very familiar with shrink numbers for specific departments and trust me, there are entire sections and authors we'd have to remove from our shelves permanently if that were a factor in buying decisions. And I have a very hard time imagining that a buyer for B&N would make such an unprofessional statement to anyone at the publisher. Shame on them if they did. But... I doubt it happened.

Anyways... I hope my incredibly complicated experiment with phoning stores (I know... I know... I'm a little more brilliant than most people...) puts some minds at rest.

The Goth Bible is most certainly available in B&N stores outside of New York and California. As is Unfit for Command...

I am so ashamed to be a resident of Louisiana today. I love New Orleans so much, but I've always been ambivalent about the state itself. But, realistically... is there a state in the union today where we are not so hated that a similar ban would not pass?

Hate... that's what it's about. And fear. I'm feared and hated by the majority of the people I pass in the street every day. Nice...

I'm sitting here drinking grapefruit vodka and 7-Up, slightly freaked out because I've decided to stay in New Orleans for Ivan. 90% of my friends have left for Texas, but I feel weird work and dog responsibilities that keep me here. And I just don't think that we're probably going to get the worst of the storm.

Of course... if I'm wrong... I could find myself underneath 20 feet of water around 30 hours from now... but... I guess we'll see...

Kind sirs, be assured I am alive and well. Of late I find myself quite discouraged at the thought or producing any discourse of note. However, I feel impelled to make a brief appearance to point out at the most interesting occurence... Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is currently residing as the #2 bestseller on Amazon and the #3 bestseller on Barnes & Noble.com.

Don't be left out... get a first printing while you can still find one in the stores...

I have a huge void inside myself tonight... I finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark.

It's hard to think that after nearly 800 pages of a novel that you'd not want it to end, but I miss it terribly now that it's done. It was absolutely one of the most satisfying novels that I've ever read. I'm not particularly given to raving about novels about magic and fairies, so to so thoroughly make me a fan of one is a great achievement. It's an astonishingly well written story in which magic is both completely mundane and utterly fantastic. It's really quite perfect in both style and execution and the story never falters for one second or one page.

I imagine that this novel has a fair chance of storming the bestseller lists this fall on both sides of the Atlantic. It's the perfect book for all of the adult fans of Harry Potter, but it far surpasses anything that the Potter books have ever achieved.

Advance copies are selling on eBay and abebooks for around $70. I wouldn't for one second think of selling my copy for twice that much.

In case you don't already know... Running With Scissors has a new show starting soon...

Awwww... I just noticed what Richard has to say about me in his links.

But.... mancutie???

I am totally hooked on the song "Your Cover's Blown" which is a 'b-side' on the Wrapped Up in Books CD Single by Belle & Sebastian. It's, IMO, perhaps the best song they've ever done.

And completely adore Walking Machine by Revl9n, which you can purchase from Other Music or listen to at Fluxblog. The best way I can describe it is B52s meet The Knife. It's my happy fun but sort of depressed song for the summer.

While this is a really lame news article with little information in it, it makes a very true statement. New Orleans IS becoming the Hollywood of the South. When I was visiting Manhattan, one of my friends there made a comment about how often you run across movies or tv shows being filmed in the streets and I just laughed. It's probably just as common and almost more likely here in New Orleans now.

Celebrity sightings have always been common here, because famous people like New Orleans as much as the common folk. But, over the last year or so, it's ramped up quite a bit. "Nicholas Cage is at DBA every night and someone swore he saw him at the Corner Pocket the other night." "Christina Ricci ate at Sake Cafe Saturday. She hates sushi though."

And the red and white cardboard signs that are used to restrict parking on streets used to spark a little excitement in me, "oooh, a movie's shooting on my street." Now, it's more like, "another movie?? geez."

I think it's great though. For once, our leaders did something right. And if anyone reading this is in contact with Parker Posey, tell her to drop by the Barnes & Noble in Metairie and say hi... I heard she was in town...

Ok... I saw another one... another fall tv pilot. This time it was the one I've been absolutely dying to see, LOST. It's a JJ Abrams show, the creator of FELICITY and ALIAS.

The premise is pretty simple. It starts in the aftermath of a plane crash on a tropical island. 48 "survivors" have to come to terms with the fact that they're not going to be rescued and that some very scary creatures share the island with them. And, naturally, more than a few of them harbor secrets of their own.

I loved the premise when I heard it and after viewing the first two hours, I'm there this fall. This show could totally rock... think Gilligan's Island (without the humor) meets Survivor meets Jules Verne.

There's also a fansite here.

Oh yeah... and for you Lord of the Rings fans... LOST features a hobbit with a habit...

I'm very very very excited because today I got my hands on an advance copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Neil Gaiman recently commently in his webjournal that he believes this to be the finest fantasy novel written in the last seventy years. I'll let you know...

And if you don't believe me about the Dark Materials... trust the words of Michael Chabon as written for the The New York Review of Books.

I've been meaning to create a link on the side to my friend Jeff's livejournal, Shelf Life. He talks about books a lot, which I like... and when he's not talking about books he's usually talking about his rescue greyhound, Dash... which I also like.

In a post today, he mentioned a conversation he and I had yesterday about Philip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy. I had read the first two books a couple of years ago but never got around to The Amber Spyglass, the final book. So, I recently read all three of them over the course of a week.

They are in serious contention for my favorite books ever. They're fucking brilliant and they completely transcend their classification as children's literature. I only wish such brilliant books had existed for me to read in my more tender years.

I wish I could claim to have come up with my clever "anti-Narnia" comment on my own, but it's something I read in an interview with Pullman on a website. But I think it's very true. Most kid lit tends to be rather cruel to children, there's often outright cruelty or a subtext of it. Not so in these books. The two children who are our lead characters are the most upright and moral characters in the story, which isn't to say that they're perfect or that they always make the right decisions.

Anyways... Dark Materials... parallel universes, Miltonian themes, dark matter, fallen angels, death in spades, witches, daemons(!!), moral uncertainty and characters who are so very human in that there are no evil or good characters. There are only people making choices and growing and learning and making mistakes and... oh for god's sakes... READ THEM!!!!

Ok... i'm a cranky son of a bitch. I admit it. I have a hard time meeting new people and making new friends. One of the benefits of the internet has been that I wind up becoming friends with people in rather odd ways. I met Mark through some round about blogging link up, but it was mainly cuz he talked about music that I liked in his blog. I got a message on one of the P2P services one day from a guy named Walter, who rapidly became one of my favorite people on this planet. Through Walter, I discovered P.J., a blogger with exquisite taste in music whose boyfriend just happened to be an ex-roomie of mine. And recently, I noticed that I was downloading a lot of music from a guy named Alexandr on Direct Connect. And then i randomly discovered his playlists of favorite songs on the net. So, I emailed him and we've built up a pretty decent friendship recently.

Yeah... it says a lot about me, I think, that all of these internet friendships are based on their musical tastes. Well, recently, the Direct Connect hub that Alexandr and I "hook up" on wend kablooey. And today I found a descendent of that hub and emailed Alex about it. He showed up in the hub in like five seconds. So... we start chatting... and he gives me a link to his Friendster profile, which leads me to his online journal. And I discover, that like Mark and Walter and PJ, Alex is a total babe...

I'm not sure what my point is... but, I think it's interesting that the 'net leads me to pretty decent friendships with incredibly cute, terribly stylish music fiends...

In case you needed proof... it's true that
dogs really do rock...

I've been meaing to make this post for a while... one of the more interesting features of iTunes is the Top 25 Most Played songs playlist. It forces you to see what you REALLY listen to, regardless of what you think your musical tastes are. So... here's my Top 25...

1. You Weren't There - Lene Marlin
2. Grey Day - Zoot Woman
3. Dice - Finley Quaye & Beth Orton
4. Am I Wry? No - Mew
5. Such Great Heights - The Postal Service
6. We Used to Be Friends - The Dandy Warhols
7. Slow - Kylie Minogue
8. Mica - Mew
9. Cherry Blossom Girl - Air
10. Take Me Out (Morgan Geist Reversion) - Franz Ferdinand
11. Obstacle 1 (Arthur Baker Remix) - Interpol
12. Elevator Love Letter - Stars
13. Pain Killer - Turin Brakes
14. Surfin' Atari - Console
15. Saliva - Mew
16. Lifelines (Console Remix) - A-Ha & Anneli Drecker
17. Hotel Parallel - Alpinestars
18. Clocks (Royksopp's Trembling Heart Remix) - Coldplay
19. Death to Death - Stars
20. NuSex City - Alpinestars
21. Fighter (Hani Remix) - Christina Aguilera
22. Making Music - Sophie Ellis Bextor
23. Home - Zero 7
24. Love Strikes - Eskobar
25. What She Wants - Felix da Housecat

Quite a few years ago, I was visiting Houston with my boyfriend of the time, Dave, and we stopped at the Bookstar at the corner of Westheimer and Alabama to browse. It's used to be one of my favorite bookstores, just because it's built inside an old movie theater.

While looking through the fiction new releases, I ran across a bookjacket that stopped me in my tracks. It was a beautiful, sort of fuzzy picture of cereal that looked like Fruit Loops. Picking the book up, I quickly realized that I had to buy the it. The title of the book was Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim. I was right to buy it. It became one of my favorite novels. And shortly after I read it, I made some comments about it on an
AOL message board (hey... i said it was QUITE A FEW years ago) which were read by Scott, who then sent me a really sweet email.

We struck up a pretty decent online friendship for a while, due to our overlapping interests in music, art, books and movies. But, as email correspondences do, it faded away over time.

Anyways, Greg Araki is making a movie of the book and I gottta say the trailer looks really promising. So, go buy the book already... (thanks to Jeff for the trailer link)

That's what just happening to run into two other bloggers on a random night out at the bars will do to your net traffic...

You heard it hear first... between Air, Geyster and Aloud, I think this mayh be the year of French pop... check out the great video for Sex and Sun by Aloud... wonderfully eighties inspired cheese...

I will never say one negative word about Anne Rice again. I just found out that she's put up a $5000 reward for information about the guys who attacked my friend Paul a couple of weeks ago. She's also used her celebrity to schedule an interview for the local ABC affiliate about the attack and about violence against gays in New Orleans. I believe it will be airing this Monday.

Paul has been through surgery twice as a result of the attack. He still has no vision in one of his eyes, but he can see light and colors now, so there is hope still.

There's going to be some sort of fundraiser for Paul's medical expenses at The Bourbon Pub on June 21st, but I don't know the details yet. NO/Aids Task Force is also administering the fund. As soon as I find out more info about all this, I'll post it here...

Well, Jonno can rest easier now.. I finally got around to watching Grey Gardens.

Brilliant... if I didn't already have a name for my blog, I think I'd call it Concentrated Ground, in honor of the movie...

Speaking of music in trailers... I am jonesing to see Garden State. An absolutely adorable trailer which fills me with curiosity about the movie...

The Movie-List Forums have become one of my favorite web resources, especially the forum I linked. I'm always driving myself crazy trying to figure out songs that are in movie trailers, even though I usually already have the song (among the 5000 songs I have in iTunes). The guys on this forum always have the answer.

GRRRR... I need this song like NOW. Erlend Oye rocks my happy heart. I can tell from the MP3s on their website that this is gonna be one of my favorite songs of the summer...

The Times Picayune, the local paper, ran an article today about the attack on my friend Paul.

Quick notes:

Currently Reading: His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

Currently Listening To: Kokomemedada - Komeda

One of my favorite blog's that I've been meaning to mention and add to my links is Fluxblog. It's an MP3 blog and Matthew, Mr Flux himself, has VERY good taste in music.

I've gotten scads of cool tunes from him and I'll be eternally greatful to him for that.

I'll also mention Losing My Edge, which I found through Fluxblog. It's a new MP3 blog, but it gets major kudos for the LCD Soundsystem inspired title.

Ok... so I've mentioned TV shows twice in the past two days.

I used to be absolutely addicted to television. I watched a ridiculous amount of it.

And then one day I decided that cable television was a luxury that I really couldn't afford anymore. It's ridiculously overpriced, IMO. And the reception that I get with bunny ears is pretty darn bad. So, I went cold turkey. And discovered that I really didn't miss it. It helped a lot that this was shortly after I moved to New Orleans, so I had new friends to hang out with and new places to explore. The only show I couldn't give up entirely was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but a friend at work taped it for me every week.

And then came one of the greatest innovations of modern times... tv shows on DVD. Through the magic of DVD, I've watched the entire run of The Family Guy and most of Sex in the City. I watched ALIAS, The Sopranos, The Shield and 24 from the beginning. I've watched as much of OZ and Six Feet Under as they've released.

And then I discovered the next greatest innovation of modern times... Bit Torrent. There are crazy (lovely) people out there who tape tv shows every week and convert them to AVI or MPG files within an hour or so of that show airing. A few hours of downloading (usually while I'm sleeping) later, I have that show on my computer to watch.

So, I watch TV shows again. But, I watch them at my convenience. And there aren't that many that I watch. For the record.. here's what i do watch:

The Shield
The Sopranos
Six Feet Under
24
Alias
Queer as Folk

With their varying schedules, that's less than four hours a week of tv watching. I can live with that. And with one obvious exception, I think the shows I watch are pretty smart.

I wasn't very happy when ABC announced their fall tv schedule and I saw that Alias isn't going to come back until January. But I just watched the pilot for the show, Desperate Housewives, that's going to air in it's timeslot on Sunday nites until it returns and suddenly I'm not so upset anymore.

It's a very clever, slightly weird primetime soap opera geared towards smart adults instead of hip teens. It's one of those shows that I shouldn't like, but I do. Very clever writing, well filmed and just enough of a sardonic edge to make it work.

Of course, now I have to wait months to see another episode...

saintetienne.com has had a pretty big update.

You can register for their fanclub on the site now and forums are up and running. And it looks like that if you sign up quickly for the fanclub, they'll send you one of the Xmas 2003 CDs that they gave out at their December London show...

Housekeeping time...

I got rid of some crap over in the border (was anyone really translating my page into French on a regular basis?) and added three links to blogs. Those would be the first one and the last two.

Dave is, of course, THE EX. Heh... I'll always call him that. He's also one of my best friends in the world. You can read all about his exploits of hippydom and beekeeping this summer. And I think I've already mentioned The Corky and Peaeye. And I sort of assumed that they'd like being next to each other on the list... what with all the togetherness this past weekend...

Ok... so I watch Queer as Folk still... And in some ways, I actually think it's gotten to be a better show.

But, I was really annoyed with the plotline early in this season in which Justin was dealing with his unresolved anger from being gay-bashed at the end of the first season. I thought it was just a bit over the top.

And then I got an email yesterday from Poppy telling me that a mutual friend of ours had been bashed this weekend.

I was in the Quarter Saturday nite and I briefly hung out with one of my friends, who told me about a party he had attended earlier in the night with his boyfriend. But they decided to go their separate ways after the party.

Around 4 in the morning, his boyfriend was walking in the Quarter when a van pulled up along side of him and five guys got out of it and started beating him for no good reason. Some teenage girls came running to help and the big bad men ran away from them. But, the damage was done. He needed nine hours of surgery and will probably never regain more than 20% of the vision in one his eyes.

I'm unbelievably angry and sad. There's nothing I can do right now besides to let them know that they're in my thoughts and to offer to be there when and if they need help.

But, I don't think that storyline was so over the top right now. Given the chance, I could easily do violence to these guys and I wasn't even the victim...

My Memorial Day weekend was overall a bit unremarkable, but I did meet Corin and Billy and their respective boyfriends this weekend out in the bars, thanks to an initial intro from Jonno. Although.. Jonno... i overheard that snarky "he's got a blogSPOT" remark... Still love ya though...

It was oh so cute watching two couples flirt... although about an hour before they actually left the bar Monday nite, I wanted to scream out... "jesus christ... would you just go fuck already!"

Oh... and Corin... when do I get access to those pics??? :)

Argh. I've waited far too long to effectively write about my trip to Manhattan. It was fabulous, natch.

I stayed at The Chelsea Pines Inn, which wasn't luxurious but it was certainly in my price range and it was pretty perfectly located for my the purposes of my trip. I'd stay there again, the rooms are funky in a good way and the staff was sweet as hell.

Mark came straight over from his office to meet me Friday night and we spent a really pleasant evening just strolling around the Meat Packing District, the West Village and Greenwich Village. We were supposed to meet Charley in the East Village a bit later at the end of some big New York Blogger Drunkfest. But... we fell asleep in my room...

See... here's Mark sleeping...



We woke up the next morning and Mark spent most of the day with me, showing from Chelsea up through Midtown. It involved more than bit of shopping, I will admit. But... clothes be cheap in the city that supposedly doesn't sleep...

Mark eventually left me, cuz he had a party to attend that nite and a business trip the next day. I was terribly sad to see him go, cuz I do love me some Mark. He's one of the most adorable guys, looks and personality, that I've ever met. I've had a HUGE crush on him since we met last summer in San Francisco. Mark has since added a boyfriend to his life since last summer however, so I exercised a massive amount of willpower and our activities on this trip weren't quite so extracurricular... He's still a great kisser tho...

Saturday nite, Charley was too hungover to hang out with me, so I compiled a list of recommended bars from Charley and Mark and hit the East Village by myself. Staying in Chelsea, I had been a bit put out by what I'd seen of New York gay boys thus far. But the moment I walked into the first East Village bar, I felt like I was HOME. Tattoos, haircuts, fashion, etc... much more to my taste. The night is a bit of blur, but I managed to visit seven different bars over the course of the night. The highlights, IMO, being The Slide, The Phoenix and The Cock. Oh... and I wound up at some place called The West Side Club late in the evening...

Sunday, I was gonna check the Biennial at The Whitney, but when I got there there was an unmoving line to the street to get in. I guess all the natives waited until the last minute to check out the show. So, after a slight detour through some parade about Israel which the entire Jewish community of New York seemed to be attending, I hoofed my way back through the city to do some more sightseeing and shopping. I saw a good bit of the city this way, walking about 70 blocks. I briefly toyed with the idea of doing a show, but thought better of it. Even at TKTS prices, I just don't like theater that much...

Sunday nite was a highlight. After I caught the season finale of ALIAS in my room, Charley came over and met me and we went to The Rambles at The Park, which is a party that Jonny McGovern throws on Sunday nites. It was a really fun space and scene. And it got points for the fact that I heard a Moloko song... Charley's friends were all swell guys. And it's always so cute how no matter where you travel, people always get an excited look on their face when you tell them that you're from New Orleans.

Anyways, Monday was another Walkfest. I walked from my place on 14th Street to Ground Zero. I managed to take a zig-zaggy route that led me through Greenwich Village, Nolita, Little Italy, Chinatown and Soho. Ground Zero itself was weird. Not so much seeing the site, but standing in the middle of the people standing there staring into the abyss with such odd looks on their faces. It was just a bit too much for me to process, so I vacated my mind by shopping some more. Century 21 is right across the street after all.... Monday nite I was too pooped to do anything too strenuous, so I went to Hell. The bar in the Meat Packing District, that is. I sat there in the mostly empty bar for a couple of hours and chatted with Joel, the utterly adorable bartender who had an iPod full of music exactly to my taste.

And then Tuesday, bidding a fond farewell to H&M, I came home...