Effluvia

Gargoyles - cool clothes.

Cecil B. Demented - quality craziness.

Chasing Amy - smart, funny.

Big Brother - stupid, addictive.

Speaking of which, Brittany ain't got no clothes!

Siobhanorama!

Siobhan should be back soon, and I can't wait. It's a good thing, too, 'cause I'm tired of the summer replacement series that's been running in this spot.

One Year Ago
The Young Ones, sex toys and running.

So, a month ago tomorrow a young man - along with his loving Wife, faithful dog and a couple of good friends - led a caravan composed of two cars and a U-Haul truck into New Orleans' Garden District, went about unloading the truck and trying to find his Destiny.

Let's see where those kids have gotten so far, okay?

Apartment: The place is really nice. Sonya's got a parking spot for the Louisiana Badass, there's a lovely pool and a balcony overlooking the green and leafy backyards of two strips of row-house condos. Sonya has fuckin' knocked herself out, unpacking, cleaning, arranging and basically making a place livable.

I like the neighborhood, too. It has a civilized, small-town vibe in the middle of a big city. Everything is nearby - location, location, location. Living space-wise, we done good.

Jobs: I like my job. It is, for the most part, calm and laid-back - a change from the slacker lifestyle I was leading at the last job and the frenetic nervousness of the job before that. I don't feel at all odd about having worked at three different places this year. It's a part of the industry. I'm learning new stuff, too. That's valuable.

Sonya has another interview tomorrow. Did I tell you about the one she went on last week? She's not going to take it, so I suppose it's all right to talk about. It was in the "Death Care Industry" - the company sold plots and caskets and ran cemeteries and such things. While this appealed to the Wife's morbid nature, the workplace itself was very formal and professional - two things she's not looking for. She's been assured that the place she's going to talk to tomorrow is casual and friendly. This is important.

"It would have been different if they'd slapped a party hat on your head, put a beer in your hand and yelled 'dead people rule!' Right?" I guessed.

"That's true," Sonya told me.

Business: All the services are turned on and the bills are coming to the right address. We have a bank account, car insurance (extortion, I might add; I'm paying twice as much as we did in Tennessee for half the coverage), health insurance...and we know where the nearest bank is, where some good places to eat are and where the best grocery store nearby is. This is coming along nicely.

Social Interaction: Here we get an F, or at the very least an incomplete. Besides a lovely evening spent chatting with Captain Ron and our encounter Saturday with a transexual originally from Memphis we really haven't met anyone who would make good friend material. Sonya is better at that kind of thing than I am, anyway, so I have a feeling she'll bring in some friends once she starts working. One of my coworkers plays ultimate frisbee; she's told me she's going to let me know when the fall league starts, since I've expressed some interest in it in the past. Perhaps that will help, too.

Overall: I think the Williams Family is pretty happy. Roxy doesn't like the hardwood floors too much - she tends to slip and slide - and I think Sonya is ready to get out of the house, but we're doing good.

"It's a good thing we like each other," I told Sonya at the movies today, "or else we would have killed ech other by now. We play well together."

Friday night Sonya and I went to Frankie and Johnny's, a greasy old place on Tchopitoulas that's obviously been there for years, for crab cakes and fried porkchops. And dessert. We sat with the predominantly old people and had an amazingly satisfying meal. Afterwards, we stopped for a pint at the Bulldog, a beer joint down the street from our house. They had the bar trivia going on and Sonya was getting a lot of answers right because it was music trivia, mainly about AM Gold. AM Gold is Sonya's specialty.

Saturday we got out early-ish and went to the Quarter, ostensibly to buy vegetables at the Farmer's Market. We parked on Elysian Fields and strolled down Decatur, stopping at Gargoyles Shoes to do a little shopping first. When we'd been down for Mardi Gras I'd seen a big strappy pair of zip-up boots with a fat platform sole on sale there for a ridiculously low price. They didn't have it in my size, though. Satruday they did, and I got them. Would they be appropriate for work? No. I'll find some place to wear them, though; they're too cool to sit in the closet. Sonya got some red snakeskin shoes, too, and we struck up a conversation with the transexual who worked there. She's originally from Memphis and identified us by our accents. Hell, we chatted with her for quite a while. We left, shoes in hand, and assured her we'd look for her on the streets at Decadence next weekend.

Shoes put in the trunk of the car, we walked farther along Decatur and into the Quarter, looking for Shalimar - an Indian restuarant the trannie at Gargoyles had recommended. We found it and gorged on their buffet. Grunting heavily, we went back out into the pounding noontime heat and walked to Virgin Music, where Sonya got me the Chasing Amy DVD as a belated birthday present. We watched it a couple of times this weekend; hands down it's Kevin's best writing.

Finally we went to the market, where we got big red tomatoes and a vidalia onion. Quality vegetables. We topped the day off with a trip to the grocery store, where they were giving away samples of Malibu and orange juice. What a wacky town!

Sonya also whipped up a batch of Fred's Famous Mexican Chicken, which is basically chicken, Doritos and lots and lots of cheese. It is very satisfying.

Sunday? We wrote off Sunday. Sonya followed the antics of the inmates in the Big Brother house while I read on the couch. Nice.

Today was my every-other-Monday off, so we slept late and then went to see Cecil B. Demented at Canal Place. Good long weekend. Good, good long weekend.