What I Did (Not) Do in New Orleans

"I was leaving the South
To fling myself into the unknown...
I was taking a part of the South
To transplant in alien soil,
To see if it could grow differently,
If it could drink of new and cool rains,
Bend in strange winds,
Respond to the warmth of other suns
And, perhaps, to bloom."
- Richard Wright

I found this poem at the beginning of the book "The Warmth of Other Suns" and thought it appropriate to my cross-country journey.  Enjoy.
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I'm sitting in Christo's shotgun house.  The fan above me has been going all night and morning, humming, just moving air around.  My clothes are clean, folded, and ready to be put back in the car along with the sleeping bag I never needed to use.  Various electronics are all fully-charged for my drive to Birmingham, Alabama.  I even have de-seeded cucumber sticks and some carrots that Christo thought were appropriate for my drive.

But I've been starting and stopping this entry for two days because I just can't think of what to write about.  It's not like I did absolutely nothing here but I also didn't have a lot of touristy things to do either since this is my third time in lovely New Orleans.

I've spent most days waking up around 9, job hunting, answering emails, reading the news, eating breakfast, drinking tea for a few hours, wandering around somewhere in the city for awhile, then coming back "home" near to when Christo gets off work.  Then we'll figure out what we want to do.  On Wednesday we went to the "Concert in the Square" and listened to the opening band be more exciting and eargasmic than the main act while we drank New Orleans Abita ales and ate duck po' boys and some shrimp concoction.

On Thursday or Friday I went to the Presbytere (one of the Louisiana State Museum locations) and checked out the "Before (During) After" exhibit about Hurricane Katrina.  Nothing I say will do the exhibit justice.  I've just wasted another five minutes trying to think of something eloquent enough besides letting you know that it's the first art exhibit I've been to that I've basically cried my way through.  There is something about being in New Orleans, experiencing life here, meeting the locals, that changes how you think about that disaster...mainly what happened right after and the spotlight that was thrown on the failure of our nation.

One part of the exhibit even had walls that were saved before this particular house was demolished to build low-income housing.  On the walls are the scribbles and rants of one man who survived the storm and who wrote something every day for weeks.

Then there are other objects such as this garage door with the infamous "X" on it.  This "X" is all over the city on houses.  A lot of people have never covered it up or painted over it.  When rescuers finally came through they would all draw this on every place inspected.  They have the date they were inspected along with various codes for who did what, the condition of the house...the bottom always indicates how many people and/or animals were found and whether or not they were dead.

 Upstairs is a more lively area with Mardi Gras costumes from different eras and krewes.

 The jewels worn by kings and queens of Mardi Gras...

My wanderings took me down streets that all started to blur together.  Thankfully, even though it's hard for me to remember the names of places I've been, they all are interesting and fun to look at...

When you look up you almost always see something similar to this:

I especially like this picture of my wandering around because it shows that there is more to New Orleans than the French Quarter.  Notice the downtown buildings...

On Saturday we attempted to be productive and went to the Freret Street Market for as long as we could stand the heat.  After a good five minutes we were both dripping sweat and were looking for shade and lemonade like it was crack.  We only lasted an hour outside (even with our lemonade and semi-shady area).

Obviously, the whole point of the market was to get the tacos Christo raved about.  If I could've taken a picture of the heat and added it to this picture then it'd be a perfect example of my life in that moment.  Pork and black bean tacos were more important than the awesome band, Debauche...and the heat. Life.

I'm not really sure what to say about these next two pictures.  Christo and I both like to experiment cooking and I guess this was our greatest success.  Black bean, corn, cherry tomato, and green onion salad.  Roasted potatoes and two kinds of summer squash.  Brown rice cooked with vegetable stock.

Christo winning. Duh.

Yet after all of these descriptions and photos I still feel as if I haven't done a New Orleans blog entry justice.  Then I randomly found this picture I took yesterday.  I think this picture sums up my time in New Orleans.  I found a small, used bookstore on Oak Street and sat reading short stories of Mexican "tías" and their allure while trying not to laugh at the 2-year old trying to get the other one to dance, ignoring the owner's annoying voice, and watching this cat slink through every bookcase.  We sat like this for awhile: I pretended to read while really watching the cat and the cat watched the people outside.  After I snapped this photo the cat stared at me.  So then I had a cat staring at me in a tiny bookstore in New Orleans while I tried to judge by the thunder outside when it was going to start raining.

That was New Orleans.