Effluvia

Oh hell yeah. I've signed up for the National Novel Writing Month project. I guess you know what my content will be next month, huh?

Oh, and of course I am the keynote speaker at Journalcon this year. I'll be giving my standard internet journal-related speech: It Ain't Ego If It's True: Trying to maintain some semblance of humility when you're so much better than everyone else. As usual, I'll maintain a hospitality suite (with open bar) at the Days Inn. And please stop by the Presidential Suite - that's where I'll be!

Jon, Sonya and I on Bourbon Street one Saturday night in August. We were drunk.

Siobhanorama!

Dried fish? Yuck.

On an unrelated topic, I was home Monday and Siobhan and I e-mailed back and forth, talking about nipples. I couldn't even tell you why.

Three Years Ago
"If you know James, try picturing him in a serape and sombrero, screaming into a Guadalajara payphone."

Two Years Ago
"I don't know," the Invisible Man said, rolling off of her, "but my ass hurts like hell!"

One Year Ago
In which I become a parody of myself.

So Sonya and I almost moved back to Memphis this summer. Did you know that? It's true!

See, we'd been here a year, and the missing of friends and family is always a factor. Plus, if and/or when the spawning commences, we want to be near family to assist with raising and babysitting, right? And real estate is just stupidly overpriced here, while nice houses can be had fairly cheaply back home. Also, our old apartment building (The Orphanage at 3000 Magazine, for the non-Sherlocks in the audience) was going condo and we were going to have to move anyway.

So Sonya headed back for Memphis to work her contacts. I stayed here to make money, and I worked my contacts, too. We e-mailed, we shook hands, we called people. I mean really - we're young, good-looking, talented and pleasant to get along with. Plus, we know tons of people back in Memphis, many of whom have the proverbial hookup. We figured finding one job would be a cinch, and two would just be a matter of time.

Bullshit.

Sonya went on two interviews - two! - while I heard nothing. Not one call, not one letter. Not dick. How disheartening. Our self-imposed deadline of August 15 came and went with niether of us having a job in Memphis. Therefore, we were staying.

Our building was still going condo, though. We needed a new apartment.

Have you ever looked for an apartment in New Orleans? In August, when the college kids alight upon the city like so many locusts? Oy, it was a challenge. Whole weekends - long weekends, at that - were burned driving around, writing down numbers, calling landlords, looking at crappy apartment after crappy apartment and squinting at the tiny print in the Picayune's want ads.

There were several good candidates, apartment-wise. The Saulet, a gigantic new complex over by the convention center, seemed promising at first. Unfortunately, the agents showing us the place had a nasty tendency to nickel-and-dime us (lots of nasty little fees added on to the rent) and they don't have the local cable, but were instead pushing some strange offbrand homegrown cable service that was added to the price of your rent. So no cable modem. Smiling and moving slowly, we backed away.

Then there was the place on St. Charles across the street from a friend of mine. It was, basically, the back half of the second floor of a house. It was very cool, if a touch overpriced - especially since it had no parking and would have essentially been inaccessible by car during Mardi Gras. Still, we were pretty high on it. Then the landlady sent her hoodlum boyfriend to show us the place. Then she wanted to know if we were serious about it, as she was going back to Australia and was thinking about storing her stuff there.

One day while I was at work Sonya went to look at one more place - a place we'd heard about early in our search, but rejected due to its drab exterior. She was charmed and immediately accepted. I didn't get to see it until we started to move in. Good thing I trust the Wife, huh?

I love our new place. It's a one-bedroom townhouse with a great big living room and a gigantic bedroom that you could open a nightclub in, if you were so inclined. Two bathrooms, full-sized washer and dryer, pantry, two off-street parking spots (as valuable as diamond-encrusted platinum in this town) and a nice little backyard with banana trees and ivy. There was even a big bunch of ripening bananas (well, plantains, to be specific and not annoy the handyman) when we moved in. And it's cheaper than our old place and we never hear the fucking neighbors, which is a huge relief since at the old place it was like we were living in a commune. They coughed, we heard it. Their phone rang, we answered ours. Ridiculous. There's a nice little park right across the street for Roxy and a big dog park a few blocks away. And it's all right between two restaurants and a bar is across the street. And it's less than a mile from the old neighborhood, anyway.

The move wasn't so bad, either. Over Labor Day weekend, while Sonya cleaned and boxed up the last few things I put the top down on the Badass and made like the Beverly Hillbillies, going back and forth between the apartments. On Friday afternoon I hired two goons with a truck to move all the heavy stuff and big stuff (and big heavy stuff) in one quick trip. I finished moving stuff Saturday and Sonya went back to clean the carpets. It took less than forty-eight hours, and it is much easier to move down three flights of stairs than up them.

And we got our entire deposit back on the old place, including pet deposit. Happy endings all around!