silent cities...

i am so very tired of reading about dead people. i feel morbid and slightly freakish, considering that i'm doing my work at a coffee house, reading and writing about american cemeteries, at the communal table where i've gotten several strange that-chick-is-reading-about-what? looks today. what joy is mine. nevertheless, i'm over-caffeinated and under-motivated. we'll call it writer's block. yes. that'll do.

so, as i promised, i'll begin the nola stories... in pieces, mind you, as i still have editing and whatnot to do this evening.

went to new orleans for new years, to visit my darling friend, dara, and her beautiful daughter, anna... and as is becoming something of a ritual with me and going to nola for new years, dara took me to frenchman street... i was smart enough to go in non-heels this year, as last year, i ended up shoeless in the quarter due to the extreme pain/blistering of my feet. ha. started at molly's [i heart molly's], ended up spending the grand moment [midnight] at the hooka bar, oh yes, drinking a lot, and taking pictures with two beautifully-dressed men in drag, sigh. i love my life. i was [willingly and rather enthusiastically] kidnapped by my friend crysti and taken, at what must have been ninety miles per hour, down the interstate through the smothering fog, to a bar in metarie, called 'jiggers,' where i proceeded to top off my drunken stooper for the evening... or so i thought. we ended up drinking champagne at something like 4 am at [newly met] steve's house and didn't get home until 7. dear. holy. god. i had the hangover from hell. all i could do when i woke up on new year's day was emit something resembling a death rattle... much to crysti's amusement.

i took a little research excursion to st. louis cemetery no. 1, which was locked, so i took pictures over the wall [this is quite a feat, given that i'm a midget], and was informed that a police escort is recommended in order to visit the cemetery. i guess this sort of thing is supposed to deter visitors. this, of course, peaked my interest, so i'm going back and i'm going to get into the cemetery, damnit. i have to wait for the arch diocese in nola to regroup post-katrina, though, in order to get proper permission, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseum - therefore, i'm going back to nola for mardi gras [killing two birds with one stone, as it were].

all of my nonsense aside, i was shocked, saddened and struck by the destruction katrina and the levee breaches left behind. though i am not from new orleans, i love the city... really and truly adore all of it - the good, the bad, all of it. seeing water lines on houses i'd admired and photographed a year previous, hundreds of cars abandoned with windows broken out and doors and trunks ajar under the interstate, driving through the ninth ward and seeing, first hand, a fate literally worse than death... i just sat, near speechless, almost in tears. i can't even describe... it just makes me hope that the city is as resilient as i think it is... and it makes me angry that the bastards who had the knowledge of what needed to be done before the hurricane season and the power to get it done didn't do anything, let hundreds of people die an indescribably horrid death, and nearly let a city be destroyed. kharma... that's all i have to say. one day, they'll get theirs. until then, there's hope for a new beginning for so many people. there's always hope.