The more things change...

If the 18 year-old me knew that the 33 year-old me would be hounded by parents to get a job and spending time at the West Memphis Public Library? He would fucking shoot himself.

Thanksgiving, and we're housesitting again. Yesterday was all about family and dashing all over town. Today I left the house once, to pick up a pizza for dinner. Just me and Sonya and John, watching cartoons and eating leftovers. It's been awesome. I don't ever want to leave.

Poppy gets it right again.

Poppy Brite, on her return to New Orleans:

"We slept in the old house on our first night, which was creepy: it's definitely haunted, not by ghosts but by our old lives that will never exist again."

That nails it. The night I spent in our old apartment was just that way. It was a bit mussed from the flying trip we had made in September, but it was still recognizably our old house. It was where we moved after Mardi Gras in 2004. Where John started to eat solid food and, eventually, took his first steps. Where we spent a few hundred quiet evenings, the boy in bed, reading or watching TV or talking about the day, happy and content in our routine. It was all there. There was the TV, there were John's toys. Jackets in the front closet, vinyl pants in the bedroom. Our old life was close enough to touch - literally! - but it was gone just the same.

It was strange and weird and wrong, even in Jefferson Parish which didn't get the worst of it. I drove from Mark and Ann's house back to my place late that night. No traffic. Pockets of inky darkness where the power was out and no streetlights worked. A vast military camp on what had been an empty field on Hickory. Refrigerators everywhere like white, overgrown tombstones. I went out at about ten that night to take out some garbage. No traffic sounds from Hickory, no one out walking around. A helicopter far away. It was spooky, and I didn't go out again. Inside the house wasn't much better, and I slept fitfully through the night.

And MRE wrappers everywhere, like a war had passed through.

But enough of that. We are moved, though there was a bit more mold and water damage than I had expected and I had to trash a lot of stuff. Now we're down to what we've got in Sonya's parent's extra bedroom and a ten-by-five storage room. That's everything. The Williams Family is travelling light.

We're house-sitting for Sonya's boss this weekend. It's a comfortably creaky old house in Midtown. She has lots of dogs and John like to play with them, greeting each dog by name.

"Hi, Wendi! Hi, Weazel! Hi, Bleu!"

We're looking at houses. I'm so close to having a job I can taste it, but no luck yet. It's barely rained in the two months and change that we've been here, and this weekend has been warm and the trees are blazing with color.