Queen of the Savages

Since I work form home, I try to venture outside of the house at least once a day.  This ensures that I get a daily dose of semi-human interaction (like listening to that man at the coffee shop scream into his phone “I did not call you dumb! I just said that Carol was smarter than you.”) and fresh air.  Typically I walk, but since I’m new to New Orleans I’ve been trying to drive every day and take a new way home in order to get my bearings. I get lost A LOT.  Yesterday, I did just that and ended up on Simon Bolivar Street in the middle of the gheeetoto.  I had no idea where I was but Simon Bolivar was the liberator of Venezuela so two points for me! I immediately called my mom and told her about my find and she was like: it’s a sign, get the hell out of there and stop trying to give me a heart attack by getting lost all the time.  Probably should not have told her how I ended up in an abandoned parking lot the night before after I insisted on picking up the take-out food on my own (I can do it.  I won’t get lost I swear) and missed the turnpike back onto that thing they call a highway here.  Made even worse by the fact that when I did manage to find the turnpike again, I wasn’t sure I had gotten on it in the right direction and just closed my eyes and prayed to the one-way gods that when I finally did see a car it wouldn’t be headed straight for me ( I like to refer to this as my female driver’s instinct).  I can’t even tell you how many illegal driving moves I’ve made in the past month, but luckily neither can anyone else. 

This weekend we went to the horse races and this was another new experience for me.  That I should never be allowed to do again.  In between races, we stopped to admire some of the horses and one of them had to pee so he let out his retractable hose and had at it.  As a great admirer of all things disgusting, smelly, and sexual in nature, I could not stop staring.  Those things are HUGE.  If we could only get them all to pee in a line together before a race started, I’d have no problem picking the winner. 

I loved the race track.  Not to get all cheesy, but it’s one of those places where people of all kinds  are gathered together for the same purpose – the possibility of winning or the thrill of winning or to satiate their gambling addiction– kind of like church, but better because there’s popcorn and beer and you know where your money is going.

It was very hard to write that title, since saying it out loud might make it go it away, but it’s true.

I waited a few seconds for the ceiling lamp to come unhinged and fall on my head striking me dead and thus making life not freaking rock as much as it does right now, but it didn’t happen.  Whew!

To the handful of you (a very small handful, like a midget’s handful) who read this thing on a weekly basis, I have to apologize for being slack lately.  In fact my brother called me from the airport last night and was like “WTF! I’m sitting here dead bored so I thought I’d finally look at your blog and you haven’t written anything that doesn’t suck lately.” Again, SORRY.  I’ve been BUSY.  Moving.  Twice.  First from Atlanta to a one bedroom shotgun on Magazine St in New Orleans and now, finally, to a two bedroom (the devil accepted my soul. Yipee!) that’s still in the same vicinity of Magazine but a little quieter.  As in, I can finally sleep again because there aren’t tractor-trailers barreling down my street in the middle of the night right into my dreams.  Or maybe that was the Southerner’s snoring.  Either way, I got earplugs and a beebee gun so if that kid who was waiting for his school bus this morning yelling at the top of his lungs to his mother about his lunch thinks he’s going to ruin my newfound peace of mind in my new neighborhood, he’s got another thing coming.

The new place: it’s awesome.  I have a real office with doors that close so I don’t have to worry about the Southerner busting in on me while I’m enjoying my lunch hour cocktail or the one I have during snack time a couple of hours later.  That way he thinks the one at 6:00 p.m. (Whew!, I’m wiped babe, it’s quitting time) is the first one of the day and we’re all happy.

There’s also a real kitchen that is pretty and will probably stay that way since unless I finally get those magical powers I’ve been hoping for since I was a kid, not much will be happening there.  Except for me calling the takeout place while I look in the fridge for a beer.

The coffee Shop: Il Posto.  I can walk to it and it makes me unbelievably happy.  My ability to inner orgasm over these kind of places would horrify even the least dedicated proletariat.  But they can suck it as far as I’m concerned.  Il Posto has takeout paninis and CUPCAKES. And I can walk there!  They also have Sunday brunch and super friendly staff.  I would do almost anything for good service.  Which is why it is very difficult for me to get out of my car at Wal-Mart (amongst other reasons, see more below).

The boyfriend. I struggle with this word.  People refer to my boyfriend, and I have to pause and think, huh? Oh, they mean that man I live with who makes me very happy.  That man I spent four days moving all of my heavy-ass furniture with and we did not fight ONCE.  I think we set a Guinness book of world records.  It’s not that I’m opposed to the concept of a boyfriend but I have a hard time with labels and couldn’t we have thought of a better word by now, really? Partner sounds weird.  It always makes me think of country line dancing.  Lover is too Victorian.  And human-being who-makes-me-so-unbelievably-content-I-could-shoot-puppies-out-of-my-ass is just too long.  Oh well, I’ll think of something better eventually.

My family:  I miss them, but we talk every day.  I especially missed my mother today after going to the store to try to pick out some bathroom mats and rugs for the new place and not being able to decide.  Mainly, because she always does this for me.  She knows how to coordinate things with color and navigate the evils of mega blood-sucking stores that are so generic and inefficient they make me want to cry and hyperventilate at the same time (WAL-MART).  More importantly, she knows how to make quick decisions about these things.  I, on the other hand, could spend hours trying to decide between a  map of the world shower curtain and one that has the periodic chart on it, and then not end up getting either because that shower curtain could last me the rest of my life and it better be the right one and because I can hear mom’s voice in my head saying “when are you going to grow up and stop staring at things while you’re on the toilet and just wipe your ass already.”

Once we get all of our stuff situated and adult looking, I’ll post some pictures.  For now, here’s one of a Mardi Gras parade that went right by the front porch of our old place:

Happy now, Brother J?

Just in case you didn’t know, the Saints won the superbowl on Sunday.  Yet another reason, why my move here has been nothing short of wonderful.  I got to witness the entire town go absolutely crazy and I’ll never forget it.  I’m officially a Saints fan for life. 

Unable to put a coherent thought together yet about my move to New Orleans due to the fact that I’d forgotten just how badly apartment hunting sucks the life out of you.  Let’s put it this way,  if the devil leased houses I’d be the first in line with my soul.  It’s probably worth at least a two bedroom with hardwood floors and a walk-in closet, if he’d be willing to overlook the endless amount of times I kicked my brother in the balls when we were kids and my mother would yell “I TOLD YOU TO STOP THAT! YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE HIM IMPOTENT!!!”  

That said, here are some preliminary thoughts since my gorgeous cousin so nicely hounded me to update this thing I like to call a blizog: 

Driving in New Orleans so far has consisted of many wrong turns down one-way streets and playing bumper cars with all the people who think their cars fit on the narrowest bumpiest roads ever constructed.  One nice old lady desperately tried to flag me down during one of my wrong way turns as I yelled FUCK IT out the window and proceeded along my merry way.  Be damned if I was going to turn that car around and get lost AGAIN.

Men here like girls who drive big trucks.  As in, “I like your truck.  Is it your boyfriend’s? Want to get coffee?”

Food.  Yum.  Muffaletta.  Yum.  Yum.  Beer. Happy. 

Watching Treasure of the Sierra Madre in my pjs with the Southerner and midway through the movie subtitles kick in, except the only words that appear on the screen, no matter what anyone is saying in Spanish, are “That is funny.”  For example, one of the Mexicans says in Spanish “I’m not a bandito.  These horses are mine.”  Translation that appears on the screen: “That is funny.”  And it was funny.

Waking up as the person I love farts on my leg in his sleep.  Now, that’s what I really moved here for :)

Brother J, Sam, and I took a road trip to Crystal River, Florida this weekend and swam with the manatee.  We kayaked to Three Sisters Spring and were immediately surrounded by these large sea cows.  While this was my favorite moment of the trip, we also ate a really great meal prepared by Sam and made a new friend across the canal who we unsuccessfully tried to convince to swim over to our side (he smartly decided to walk).   I  was also introduced to Brother J and Sam’s new obsession: Dexter, a show about a serial killer (and even though I bitched and moaned about them watching tv for five hours straight, I was the one that made us stay up until 3:00 a.m. this morning– I just need to know what happens, guys.  Just one more.)

This past Christmas and New Years celebration have definitely been one of the best ever.  If you’ve never spent a New Years eve in the French Quarter, I highly recommend you try it.  For at least ten minutes.  Then get the hell out of there, but not before you get a drink in a strip club and wish a happy new years to the ladies that deserve it the most.   

Then make your way to Frenchman Street and party like it’s 2010.

Things that made this New Years great:

1. Convincing a very conservative Spanish girl that she had to go into the French Quarter’s most famous bar, and forgetting to mention that it was a strip club.

2.  Convincing another girl who was a strip club virgin to tip a stripper with you, and then watching as the stripper licked her neck.  Ok, so maybe it was my neck.  But nonetheless, it made me happy.

3.  Making it to Frenchman Street in time for the fireworks and this year’s greatest make-out session so far.

4.  Handing everyone in the crowd a grape and asking them to make a wish.

5.  Wandering into a club after midnight that turned out to be a Latin dance club and dancing our asses off.

6.  Listening to some guy tell this girl that she was the woman of his dreams and then asking her to remind him what her name was again?

7.  Making a pit stop in a bar to use the bathroom, looking around and realizing everyone around me was a transvestite. And that the beers cost $1.50.  Yipee!

I’ve never felt so at home in a city in my entire life.  Happy New Years! I hope your’s was equally fun and full of love.