Effluvia

I think WWOZ, New Orleans' listener-supported radio station, is just the best thing ever. I've got it on right now and they're playing a set of Louis Armstrong Christmas songs. Could anything be cooler? If you don't like jazz it's probably not so great, I guess.

Some of the best bottled water going on right now is Fiji Natural Artesian Water, which comes in a pretty square bottle - from Fiji! I've only found it at one place, though - the gas station down the street that has the cheapest gas in town. Curiously, this same gas station doesn't sell beer.

Hey, y'all remember that book that Borders got taken to court for a few years ago 'cause someone said it was kiddie porn? I saw it at Virgin the other day.

What? Huh? Oh. Different strokes to move the world, man.

Meet Vinnie, the tampon case distributor.

Everyone has a web site these days.

Much respect, as always, to Memepool.

Oh, and I think I saw Kevin from Better Than Ezra walking in the garden District Saturday night. I'm pretty sure it was him, anyway. That's pretty neat.

Journals

• Bad Hair Days
• Plaintive Wail
• Humidity and Hebephrenia
• Randomly Ever After
• U9
• Fukushu
• Nature of life...
• DNA Sequencing

Siobhanorama!

Siobhan graduates. Impressive.

The Coworkers
Ain't Cool Dep't.

I've been off for a few days. But I did once have a boss (Stan the Idiot) who would leave the office early on payday to keep from paying us. I hated him. I wish he were here now so I could kick him.

One Year Ago
One year ago tomorrow. I was very bitter.

So Siobhan wrote me and said:

And I did. I did have a rock star weekend!

When I left you last Sonya, Anonymous Aquaintance #0004 (first mentioned in this entry) and I were drinking and getting ready to go to the House of Blues for the Better Than Ezra Christmas show. We all pounded down several glasses of the special holiday punch made by one of Sonya's coworkers (key ingredients: rum, champagne) and got quite giggly before we went out to wait for the cab I had called. Unfortunately that cab never showed and we all lost our buzz. Anonymous Aquaintance #0004 (hereinafter reffered to as AA, for brevity's sake) called us another, more prompt cab. It appeared quickly, driven by a short, fat, bald and happy driver. He was the quintessential cab driver - a dying breed. He was listening to horrid easy listening Chrsitmas music and talked the whole was there. I loved him.

We ate at the House of Blues (fried things, mainly) and then went over to the music portion of the building - but not before seeing the friendly bartender from the week before. We promised to come back and visit with her after the show.

The music part of the building was packed - the opening band had already started - but we got some beers and then elbowed our way down onto the floor in front of the stage. AA and Sonya both proved adept at fighting through crowds; I merely followed their lead.

I knew it was going to be a good show when Santa peeked out of the closed curtain. Then, when they finally opened the curtain it was snowing on stage. I was pleased.

The frat boys around us were displeasing, however. I have nothing against frat boys in general - some of my best friends, in college and since then, have been frat boys - but these particular frat boys were loud, clumsy, intent on requesting their favorite songs during every break...and they had a nasty habit of high-fiving each other over my head. No. That had to stop. I'd see the hands go up and I'd put my arms in the air and jump up and down. Also, I swear one of them was dry humping my ass. I think we're engaged now. Anyway, Tom made the audience pogo like a punch of fiends during Desperately Wanting so I took the opportunity to stomp dude's feet and put my elbows into his ribs. He and his friends gave me my space after that.

I saw one of these same guys pressing up behind Sonya, too. She turned and said something to him and he jumped away from her. I asked her later what she said.

"I asked him if he was going to get off of me or if I was going to have to move him myself," she told me.

I love that Wife of mine.

After the show we went back out to the bar in the restaurant (does that make sense?) where our buddy the bartender was working. She took good care of us. If you go to the House of Blues, drink at the bar where Tiphany is working, and tell her I sent you. You will be taken care of - she's the finest bartender I've found in this city. She spent the evening talking to her late-night cohorts and telling us about the time on her birthday that she ended up in her underwear on stage at one of the karaoke bars on Bourbon. It was a quality evening.

But we weren't done! We went staggering off into the foggy French Quarter. We stopped and stuck out arms through the gate of a supposedly haunted carriageway. You're supposed to feel something when you do this.

"It's cooler," I announced.

"Of course it's cooler," AA scoffed, thrusting her arm inside. We felt nothing.

We checked out Bourbon Street (the crowd was sparse, drunken, cranky and irritable) and wandered toward the quiet end of the street, where we ended our evening with a drink at Lafitte's. AA crashed on our couch.

We took AA to La Peniche for breakfast (monstrous omelettes under their monstrous Christmas tree) before she left town. Then Sonya and I went Christmas shopping again. We spent money like we were rock stars.

"Ah, take it, ya dirty fuckers!" we seemed to yell at the various merchants, "money's no good if you can't spend it!"

Oh, a cool place to go shopping if you're in New Orleans: the New Orleans School of Glassworks and Printmaking Studio at 727 Magazine. They have some totally beautiful (if frighteningly expensive) art there. Go just to look, but do buy a little something. It's great.

All day Saturday I coughed and coughed and coughed. Sonya insisted I buy more Robitussin. The cough had settled a bit before that, but I was afraid that I was getting sick again, or following the cold with bronchitis or a sinus infection, as per usual. I swigged the cough syrup from the bottle and we went grocery shopping.

We got home in time to see the Seahawks beat the Raiders (Ha!) and then we left the house again to go to the suburbs, where one of Sonya's coworkers was having a party. Well, kind of. Her daughter was having a belated birthday party, but the coworker was having friends over, too. Both the coworker and the daughter having a birthday were cute as they could be. I liked the daughter for two reasons:

1. She had none of the sullen hatefulness most teenagers seem to have a surplus of. She mingled about, talking and laughing with her guests, and she seemed thrilled that Sonya and I showed up.
2. She complimented me on my earring.

I liked the coworker and her husband, too. The coworker filled us in on the Melrose Place-like romantic entanglements of her daughter's friends, while the husband kept trying to get us to drink.

It was neat. We were the only people there our age, to be sure, but the teenagers and soccer moms were cool. Just another evening in suburbia, I suppose. I enjoyed it immensely.

I tried to stay up late Saturday night, like any rock star would, but I kept nodding off.

Sunday we went to the Superdome to cheer on the Saints against the Hated Atlanta Falcons. We got the tickets online like on Tuesday or something and they were the best seats we've had all season - visiting team end zone, just a few rows up from the field.

"You may catch a pass," I told Sonya.

The Saints worked out right in front of us before the game - very cool. Those are some large men, I tell you what.

The Saints demolished the Falcons, too. They weren't even playing their best game, either, and the final score was 23-7, virtually assuring New Orleans of a playoff spot. The crowd was quite boisterous, both during and after the game.

We stopped for Chinese after the game, then went home where Sonya wrapped presents and I slid into a cough syrup coma.

Today was my...bi-monthly? Bi-weekly? Fuck it. Today was my every-two-weeks-day-off day off and I had lots to do! I dropped Sonya's car off to get the damage from last month's wreck fixed (also recounted in the above linked entry). It was just a few blocks down Magazine (everything, I'm learning, is on Magazine) but it was sunny and breezy so I put the top down and cranked up the radio. Divine.

I was sitting on the curb outside the body shop after I dropped off the car. The sun was shining on my face, there was a little breeze, it was cool but pleasant...I was leaning against a splintery light pole, being warm and not really thinking about anything, just waiting for the guy from Enterprise to come get me, when I realized that for the first time in two weeks I actually felt decent. And that it had been two weeks to the day since I started to feel shitty. So it was a two-week cold. And I'm over it. I wanted to get up and do a little dance. Instead I sat and grinned at the traffic.

The guy finally showed up to get me, driving a gigantic Ram pick-up. We proceeded to narrowly avoid rear-ending people all the way to Earhart, where I picked up the beautiful rental car: a silver Metro.

I didn't even know they still made Metros! But they do. True, it's no longer a Geo Metro, merely a Chevy Metro, but the retarded-Neon look is unmistakeable. And no power steering, either. My arms will be huge gorilla arms by the time I turn it back in!

So I wrestled with the steering wheel and cursed at the car all the way to the New Orleans Center, where I wanted to pick up a little piece of art for a friend of mine. I parked and, making sure the store was open, went down to the ATM.

And I didn't have my check card.

You must understand: I live and die by my check card. It is in constant use. And I had no cash whatsoever. And I'd just parked my car in a lot that costs $1.00 for three hours. Sure, it's just a buck, but it's a buck I didn't have. Thankfully, I managed to remember the PIN number to one of my credit cards.

But where was my check card?

I knew I'd used it three times on Sunday, so what happened after the third time?

The third time was at Kung's Dynasty, a fine Chinese place on St. Charles. The food yesterday was excellent, as usual, but the service was a bit erratic. After Sonya and I ordered the dinner for two the waitress looked at us, puzzled.

"You want app'tize?" she asked in a heavy Chinese accent, "or main me?"

We went over the order again, and got the food we ordered. We did have to ask for our leftovers several times before we got them back, though.

And yes, they did have my check card. I love happy endings.