Angst!

Okay..... First, I haven't been able to find a bartending job because I have no experience, which I honestly understand, and I've managed to make some degree of peace with. But, I got in a cleaning frenzy and acidentally threw away my job lead sheet with the temp. agencies, and I'm kinda afraid to call the school and ask for numbers. (one of the teachers is a little bitchy) So, I'm a little frazzled with myself. But I did manage to find a job as a server, oh yippeeee, which will give me a chance to work up. But, being the lazy cow that I am, I'm just not diggin' the gig.

Second...sigh...I took the step and contacted the realestate lady about buying a house. I have absolutely noooooo idea what I doing, or where to start. But I have been steered to a mortgage company. I'll call that lady in the morning...... I'm so friggin' scared. I have all these horrible visions of people laughing at me thinking I can qualify for loan. It's making me sick. But like Ms. Rose used to say, "you have not, because you ask not".

Third... if I see one more ad for a tv show about a meteor/earthquake/volcano/etc that will destroy the human race, I'm going to flip the hell out. What is it with these? The first couple where interesting, but now they are totally out of control. I'm in a bad enough mood as it is. bleh.

Fourth...I thought I was going to graduate this summer.... but that was a little overly ambitious. I have to take an additional class, and there is NO WAY that I can do 9 lessons a week for 6 weeks, and take 3 midterms and 3 finals AND get everything submitted before july 8th, (everything has to be submitted 1 month before the final grade due date in order to have a shot at making it for summer graduation. So, december will work just fine. Jeeze, and I haven't even thought about GRE's and getting stuff together to apply to grad school.... but atleast the Deadline is in November for that. Finally, a school in georgia that has realistic dates.

But, on a brighter note, it's about 6 weeks until Las Vegas Baby! I really think that THE Boy will finish in some kind of money. If he makes the final table, I'll let everyone know so they can watch him on TV. That would just be the coolest thing.

Happy Easter!

To celebrate the season when we worship magical anthropomorphic bunny rabbits that lay plastic eggs filled with candy I have decided to post some incredibly cute pictures of the dog wearing some very cute bunny ears. In deference to his manhood, withered though it maybe since the last trip to vet, I got green ears instead of the pink. I still think he could have carried off the pink well. And he tolerated the ears quite well actually.....as long as the treat stayed no greater than 3 feet from his nose.











The one to the right is Bowie being very tired and drooling on the sofa after 5 minutes of working very hard at being cute.

There are a few more, but I didn't want to blind anyone with the cuteness. No holiday pics of the cats though. I tried... trust me, I tried. But without tranquizers and duct tape there wasn't much hope.

Well, other than insulting the dignity of the pets, not much is going on here. Brian started his last quarter at AIA last week, and I started bartending school. I should be studing right now, but I'm prograstinating. Old habits die hard I guess. But the bartending school is fun, and there is more to bartending than a thought. If all goes well, like memorizing about 50 drinks, and memorizing a page worth of liquors by type and popularity.... and a page worth of liqueurs by flavor, I'll get my diploma of mixology by next friday. wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

So..... ummm..... I'm back! Yeah, it's been a while.... Life happens though. I moved, got a "roommate", got a job, quit the job, messed up on my school plans (just a temporary set back), and got a dog. But I had - and I quote - "...gotten too worked up..." and "...was not in a happy place" and ".... need(ed) to get a little distance". Which was true, I had a hard time getting some perspective on things. I'm just glad that somethings are getting better for some of the people affected.

Oh yeah, here's the dog (his name is Bowie, by the way. He was nuetered last week and got his stitches out. Poor thing! I'm considering getting him some testicular implants, I just feel so guilty when I'm walking behind him now. )

And yes, we let him on the couch. But he's so damn big (he's a lab/great dane mix and 85 pounds) it's hard to find a dog bed that really works for him. Plus, the dog beds I got him sort of got ruined....see, the cats aren't very happy about thier new big brother, and the "White Devil" took to relieving herself on them. It was either retribution or the fact that for the first 3 weeks he was here he "forgot" he was house broken and kept having little accidents on curtains, the side of our bed, and his dog beds. But he has such a sweet face, how could you get too mad at him.

Anywho, I'm back and in the posting spirit. I have so much new stuff to rant about, and so much personal stuff to have agnst about. wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Just for the hell of it, I thought I post the lyrics to Louisiana 1927, by Randy Newman.

I probably haven't done it properly, and I sorry if I'm violating copyrights... But I did cite the writer. It's so appropose... And I think most people aquainted with the history of the region understand the irony of it. The more things change the more they stay the same.

If you want a truely heart breaking, gut wrenching experience, listen the Aaron Neville version of the song, and look at the picture of the elderly lady who has virtually shrouded herself with an american flag blanket at a shelter. The irony and symbolism at that is almost more than I can bare.


Louisiana 1927 Song Lyrics by Randy Newman

What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through cleard down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

CHORUS
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tyrin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has doneTo this poor crackers land."

CHORUS

CATHARSIS

Well, damn…

What do you say? Is there anything you can say?

I don’t think there is anyone from any part of Louisiana that isn’t affected by Katrina and what is happening in the state. Love it, or hate it, we are all tied to New Orleans in some way. I think about all the people I know from school who were from New Orleans, or moved there, and I wonder where they are... were they there?… did they leave, did they stay? How can I find them? I think about my family, and how, thankfully, my closest relative to there is in Baton Rouge. I think about the 2 times in recent years I’ve nearly moved there, and how I could be either one of the dead or one of the walking dead… I look at maps and try to figure out where relatives used to live, but I can’t tell because it’s all water now. I just can’t stop putting myself in the place of all those people I see on TV… the angry ones begging for help that hasn’t come yet… that promised help that they are supposed to “be patient” for… that life saving help that they have been waiting days for already…. With many dying … they made it through the hurricane… they made it through the water to a “safe” place… and they die waiting for help.

On TV yesterday, they were talking to some survivors on an overpass. The lady who was acting as a guide pointed out a family trying to take care of their grandmother who had Alzheimer’s. All I could think was “that could be MY mother”. And I know with my mother’s current condition, I truly doubt she’d last the first night out there without water. So, I know that many of people that you see waiting for rescue won’t live to see it. A healthy adult can go without water for what, 3 days? What about the sick and infirm, and what about children and babies…. Dear God, the babies. That is something that I just don’t let myself think about. Until I hear some soulless bastard say “It’s there fault for staying” or “it was stupid to build a city below sea level”. Well, I’m sure Bienville will burn in hell for not having a fucking GPS when the damn territory was settled a couple of hundred years ago. How easy it is for some people to sit with their full bellies, in their safe and dry house and pass judgment on other people…. To pass judgment on the 3 week old baby who was being held up by its father outside the Convention Center as he begged for formula or water because they hadn’t had water and food in 3 days. Yes, by all means let’s blame the poor, the young and the sick. I put people who do that in the same category as the looters.

I also feel horribly guilty. I have friends who are missing family members, I have friends whose family members now only have what they left New Orleans and Slidell with… And I’m okay…. My life is fine, better than it as ever been actually, in many ways – through no fault of my own. I’ve just been lucky. And I feel very guilty about that. I feel guilty that I can’t help… Yes, I’ve given money already… and will again. But I can’t go save anyone. I feel like I need to. It feels like it’s not enough unless I personal go and pull people off the overpasses. Intellectually, I know that’s wrong but I’m getting a little too wrapped up in this and I don’t know quite how to pull back.



I have been asked, more than once, why am so upset about New Orleans since I’m not from there. I am from North Louisiana, but my grandmother grew up there. That was the port of entry for her grandparents, her grandfather came from France and her grandmother came from somewhere in Eastern Europe – possibly Russia, but we’ve never been able to nail that down. My grandmother loved New Orleans passionately! She frequently visited her sister there, (her sister… now there’s a story for ya’! Another day perhaps) and would return with tales of the “Big City”. She passed her love for the city on to me. New Orleans was my fairyland (pardon the pun, since she spent most of her time in The Quarter and the Garden District); it was my Camelot (from the wrong side of the tracks). I was raised on my grandmother’s story of being a Flapper in New Orleans during the ‘20’s. Stories of Mardi Gras Balls and the antics of her younger sister’s questionable acquaintances filled my head along with such big city things as elevators and street cars. Nope, no castles and dragons for me… it was New Orleans! I knew I wanted to live there one day when I grew up, so I could be like my grandmother. It was my achievable fairy tale. Later, after I was actually allowed to go to New Orleans, I fell in love with the history, with the architecture, with spirit of the place. New Orleans is just different. Some people get it, and some people don’t. If you get it, you love the city in spite of itself. It’s something that I can’t really explain to you, but if you have it you know what I mean.

For better or worse, and whether you like it or not, New Orleans was Louisiana. Don’t give me all that crap about the “piney hills” in the north, and all that other stuff. It’s just splitting hairs. New Orleans is symbolic of past, of our heritage… of why we are different that the rest of the country. If you don’t believe that Louisiana is different, try living another state for while. My God I miss it! I would have already moved back, except for the economic climate, job market, and poverty – I’m better off living outside the state and it kills me. I miss the people, I miss the land, I miss having parishes instead of counties…I miss having calendars with Mardi Gras on them. And now I’ve missed my chance to walk in my Grandmother’s footsteps. I’m glad she didn’t live to see New Orleans slowly drowning along with her people.

I am so sorry for everyone.

OMG, IT'S DEATH WEEK!!!!!!!!

Geez, already?...Where does the time go? For those of you not from Memphis, "Death Week" is also know as "Tribute Week". The week when the faithful from all over the world make a pilgrimage to Memphis to stand in a very long line, in the heat and humid, to view Elvis' grave and wait for 1) Elvis to wave from the second storey window and announce that he is not dead or 2) wait for Elvis to rise again. It's much like Linus waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin. Out of respect for the dead, I'll avoided drawing parallels to vegetables and dead rock stars.... But I do keep seeing this image in the back of my mind of a giant, floating pumpkin in a white jumpsuit. O.o It's disturbing, but I've been through worse.

The Vigil - yes VIGIL, candle light even - it over the top. To me it's just creepy and sick, yet the morbid fascination of it all just sucks you in. (I've included a link to the page page at the "official" EPE site that will get you to either the simulcast vigil or the tape of it) Anyway, HE'S DEAD! And regardless of what the National Inquirer says, you just don't to encores for that. Sorry, but go on with your lives!!!!!!! You can appreciate the music without worshipping the corpse.

But, it's good for a laugh. Bookmark the site, and check back in December when they usually have a cam up for the Christmas Lights.

Yeah, I'm bored.... and I have no idea what I'm doing but that is just normal..... I'm in the process of moving to another state. And I've got waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to much time on my hands at the moment because my employers chose to not let me work out my 2 month notice. I'm actually pretty pleased about that...but at the same time, my feelings are a little hurt. I have that feeling that I have failed or something. But I don't know why I care, because I loathed that job, and have been stuck with it for a year trying to get the hell out of here.

So I'm bored, and burnt out.... yippeeeeeeee! Always a winning combination. Thankfully though, things are actually getting better for me.... For the first time in a long time. So I'll deal with the boredom, and inflict myself on others. For that boys and girls, is the true American way.