It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

That’s right…not Christmas, not Easter, but Carnival time! That special time of year when the streets are crowded with gawking tourists, decent parking is impossible to find, and Bourbon Street drunks bare their wares more frequently than any other time of year.

All this aside, it’s still the most wonderful time to live in New Orleans. Costumes are being constructed, businesses are thriving, and residents seem (mostly) happy.

Because Mardi Gras falls so late this year, the weather is also warmer than usual, ensuring that more and more people will be willing to stand outside for hours to watch the parades pass by and collect assorted loot (beads, cups, stuffed animals, etc.).

This year, I’m determined to put together a costume for Mardi Gras itself. Until last year, I stayed in my Uptown neighborhood until all the parades of the day (Zulu, Rex, and the truck parades) rolled on by, then took my loot and relaxed at home with a drink or 12. (Catching beads all day, and occasionally getting hit in the face with them, can be exhausting.) Last year, after an especially long stall in the middle of Rex, I decided to go home, throw something together, and head to the Quarter. I went home and whipped together a skirt made of beads and threw on some various Mardi Gras accessories, most of which had been caught from other parades—headband, purple feather boa, MG-themed sunglasses—and headed downtown with my roommate.

The French Quarter on Mardi Gras is an absolute madhouse, not to mention a visual cornucopia of sights and sounds, colors and costume. It’s chaos and cacophony and brilliant, brilliant fun. The costumes alone are worth braving the crowds and making the trip.

Last year, for Halloween, I put my not-so-crafty self to work making a costume. I should emphasize here how not-domestic I am. I cannot sew. I barely cook. I have never endeavored to get all crafty and have never in my life owned a glue gun until now. My conversation with my mother (who happens to be incredibly crafty) went like this:

Mom: Watch out…glue guns are very hot.

Me: Duh. I think I’m smart enough to use a glue gun.

Five minutes later, post-phone conversation:

Me: YEEEOOOOWWWW that’s hot!!! Oops, I think I just glued my finger to the table.

In the end, the costume (a voodoo doll) came out acceptable enough. So this year I’ve decided to put my craft non-skills to work again in order to make a costume for Mardi Gras. This calls for a trip to costume shops, the Salvation Army, and Michael’s craft store. The only thing standing in my way now is this little thing called “working for a living.”

Working from home is both a blessing and a pain. I’d love to get started on my costume now, leaving myself lots of time to screw it up and have to start all over. But I don’t think my clients would appreciate blowing off my looming deadline because of the importance of Mardi Gras. They don’t live here. They just don’t understand.

Fortunately, my current deadline falls a week before Mardi Gras, leaving me that much time to get my imagination rolling and try to come up with something. I have ideas floating around in my head but lack the artistic vision to bring them to reality. I’m a word girl, not an artist. But I’ll do the best I can.

Whatever the result matters not. It’s all part of the experience. It’s the love of Mardi Gras, of parades, of friends, and of New Orleans. In the end, it’s all about the joy and fun of sharing the day with others.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Peaches

My street smells like peaches

in the middle of the night

when I’m drunk

Or perhaps that’s just what I imagine

so tired of the scents of

crowded bars and cigarettes

and stuffy cabs on

humid nights so withering

that I forget it’s autumn and not

the middle of summer

as I stumble over darkened

root-fingers that want me to stay

and sit among the leaves

and scampering anoles

and tell tall tales about the night

I was accosted by the peach trees

Everything I never wanted to know about leprosy…

…I learned from James Carville. Yes, THAT James Carville. Seriously.

Last weekend I attended the 24^th annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, an extravaganza of wordiness and worldliness, featuring writers, publishers, performers, and literary experts from around the country.

I didn’t get to take advantage of everything the fest had to offer, but I did get to enjoy some fantastic events and meet some fantastic people.

On Thursday night I competed in the festival’s poetry slam, held at One Eyed Jack’s and hosted by New Orleans’ own Chuck Perkins. It was my first time competing in a slam, though I’ve been doing readings for years. My friend Becky showed up to show some support, and while I didn’t win, I didn’t really expect to. There were tons of fabulous poets there, including the slam poets; Chuck Perkins; and my friend and festival organizer, poetry goddess Lane Lane Miller.

On Friday, as a favor to Laura, I helped out at the festival’s information booth, directing fest-goers to events, restrooms, restaurants, ticket sales, etc., and checking in authors, panelist, and board members. While I had put the previous night’s slam out of my mind already, I was thrilled to have a least a half dozen people recognize me throughout the day as one of the competitors and congratulate me on my performance. Even though I well aware that there were many poets there who were better than I was and never really intended to win, being recognized repeatedly for doing a good job made my day.

Like other festival volunteers, I received a panel pass for the remaining days of the festival, which I took full advantage of. Saturday I began the day with “Conversation with James Carville,” which led right into “Kept In, Kept Out: The Haunting Secrets of Carville, Louisiana,” a panel that featured James Carville, Jose Ramirez Jr. (author of Squint: My Journey with Leprosy), Neil White (In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir), and Marcia G. Gaudet (author of Carville: Remembering Leprosy in America).

While most people are accustomed to hearing James Carville speak as a world-renowned political consultant, listening to him recount his days as a young boy growing up in rural Louisiana was a refreshing and fascinating change.

Carville (which was renamed to its current name in 1909…the postmaster’s name was Carville) was the home of the national Hansen’s Disease Center, which operated for more than 100 years as a “leprosarium” and for a short time as a federal prison. Hansen’s disease is more commonly known to most people as leprosy, though Hansen’s disease is the correct and acceptable name.

Aside from James Carville’s memories of growing up in Carville, for me the most interesting panel member was Jose Ramirez Jr., a native of Laredo, Texas, who in 1968 was diagnosed with Hansen’s disease and banished to the Hansen’s Disease Center. His story was gripping, and his struggle to recover and then to educate others on the truth about Hansen’s disease was inspirational.

At one point in the discussion, Ramirez challenged his audience to go out and educate ten people on what they had learned that day. Here’s what I learned.

The word “leper” is NEVER acceptable, as its connotations are far more negative than just a description for persons suffering from Hansen’s.

Hansen’s disease, while challenging to diagnose, as it requires a biopsy and a specific test, is easily curable. It’s a chronic bacterial disease and is treated with antibiotics. Persons diagnosed with it are most often treated as an outpatient and cured within 48 hours. Not treated. Cured.

Hansen’s disease is not as contagious as people have long believed. In fact, no more than 5 percent of the population is susceptible to the bacteria that cause the disease.

The Hansen’s Disease Center closed its doors in 1999, but this place is now the site of the National Hansen's Disease Museum.

I could probably go on about how fascinating this panel was, but the rest of the festival was equally as informative and entertaining. After the panel on Carville, Louisiana, I attended one called “The Civil Way in Fact and Fiction,” featuring Robert Hicks (author of A Separate Country, a novel about General John Bell Hood) and Molly Haskell (author of Frankly, My Dear: “Gone With the Wind” Revisited). Hicks spoke about General Hood as a man and as a general, his life, and his leadership. Haskell’s book focuses on the making of the film Gone With the Wind, which I’m thinking it might be time for me to finally read/see.

I left that panel to head immediately to “The Business Side of the Publishing Industry: The Agent, Editor, and Publisher Connection,” in which the panelists, all experts in their fields, walked attendees though the details of finishing a book, acquiring an agent, finding a publisher, and communication with publicity experts to market your book.

While it was very informative, from my perspective, I won’t go into all the details. Suffice it to say that I’m acquiring a good base of knowledge in case I ever get motivated enough to write a book.

The same can be said of the following morning’s panel, “Books Unbound: How Digital Delivery Is Changing How Stories Are Told, Sold, and Read.” Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? Eh. Probably not from an average reader’s perspective. But as a writer these are considerations that will affect me one way or another in the future, unless I never aspire to write a novel or story or book of poetry and just continue posting silly blogs for the rest of my days.

I took a break from my fest-going to partake of some refreshing libations at New Orleans’ best bar, the Erin Rose. With good prices, a largely local clientele, and an awesome staff, this is my favorite place in the city. If you haven’t been there and you live here, well, shame on you. If you live elsewhere and haven’t been there, that’s just one more excuse to come visit me.

Also occurring simultaneously as the literary festival this weekend was the New Orleans Roadfood Festival on Royal Street, featuring some great food from not only around Louisiana but around the country. Hats off to the barbecue joint from Texas, Louie Meuller’s Texas Barbecue, who brought their whole smoker with them. Man, that was some damn good brisket.

I followed up my brisket-filled mouth-gasm with an event that closes out the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival each year — the Stella and Stanley shouting contest, the preliminaries of which are held in Jackson Square from one of the balconies of the Cabildo. Stella, in all her Southern charm, stood perched on the balcony awaiting her callers. Next to her was Stanley, last year’s winner of the contest. Twenty-five contestants competed in the contest, which was open to both men and women. I was pleased to see my friend Brian in the contest…nice job, Brian! Of the contestants in the preliminaries, three were women, but only one shouted for Stanley (even though I thought he was pretty good looking). I found that…interesting.

I didn’t stay for the finals of the contest, as I had spent the weekend ignoring my own clients and work and needed to go home to catch up. In true New Orleans fashion, I met up with my dear friends Andie and Charlie on the way home and wound up drinking far too much wine to get any work done. But it was totally worth it.

Overall, I’m a bit ashamed that I didn’t attend more of the literary festival when I knew about it last year. I’ve gained a great deal more insight into the publishing world than I had before, listened to participants’ heartfelt stories, and met some amazing people.

And I now have many more authors to add to my own Amazon wishlist. I may never finish reading…

When the Saints Go Marching In…

Those who know me (and sometimes love me) know that I am a transplanted Yankee from a rural corner of Pennsylvania. Though I have always been and will always be a devoted Eagles fan first and foremost, I do love me some Saints. I have to, as New Orleans is my adopted home.

I was among the crowds on the streets of New Orleans when the Saints brought home the NFC Championship on January 24 by beating the Vikings with an overtime field goal, causing the city to erupt into a massive, spontaneous, citywide orgasm. The level of pure, unadulterated joy was something I’ve never seen before, anywhere.

In the two weeks between the NFC Championship game and the Super Bowl, New Orleans also went about its annual business of hosting the best party ever…Carnival, or Mardi Gras season. It’s one of the things the city does best, and one of my favorite times of year. While most people who have never visited New Orleans associate Mardi Gras with the drunken debauchery and crime displayed on shows like “Cops,” that’s not really what it’s about at all. Though trust me, the debauchery happens all year long on Bourbon Street, thanks to hoards of inebriated tourists. (And yes, I was once one of them.)

But Mardi Gras is so much more than that. Sure, it’s a party. Sure, there’s drinking, sometimes. But the popular myth that only by flashing their bodacious ta-tas to passing floats can women get beads is entirely untrue. That’s what Bourbon Street is for. All year long.

Along the major parade route, St. Charles Avenue, the streets are lined with families, friends, students, residents, tourists, etc. The kids are perched in ladders with attached seats that can be purchased at any local hardware store. The vibe is mostly friendly (except, in my experience, at Zulu’s parade, where I found the quest for the famous Zulu coconuts to be much more cutthroat).

Mardi Gras is much more civilized and much more family-oriented that some TV shows would have you believe. There are no barricades along the Uptown route. Children and adults are free to walk up to the floats to get beads, or stand back yelling, “Hey, throw me something, please!”

I find this year that yelling “WHO DAT?!” is also an effective way to get riders to throw you the loot.

The Super Bowl this year landed squarely in the midst of the city’s Mardi Gras celebrations. I watched the game from the best bar in New Orleans, the Erin Rose. The place was so packed that we watched the game from outside one of the two large windows at the front of the bar, where we had a great view of the big-screen TV on the wall.

No one in sports really expected the Saints to win this one. Sportscasters all over had pretty much handed an easy win to the Colts before the game ever started.

But the Who Dat Nation never lost faith. We yelled. We screamed. We hugged strangers in the street. We never gave up because the Saints never gave up.

The win was a beautiful thing for New Orleans. Once again, the streets overflowed with screaming fans, many shedding tears for something they’ve been waiting for their entire lives.

I’ve recently been called a traitor to my own team by jumping ship and sporting a black-and-gold Who Dat shirt. I’ve never in my life worn anything but my beloved Philly green, but I don’t think I’m a traitor. I don’t think I jumped ship either. Since Philly didn’t even make it that far, I don’t think they’d mind me supporting the city in which I live now…the city I love.

I donned the black-and-gold Who Dat shirt again for the Saints victory parade last night through New Orleans. While no official estimate of the crowds is available yet, once reporter guesstimated that there might possibly have been 800,000 people there, lined up to see their beloved Saints. Many people across the river on the West Bank waited hours to cross the river by ferry, and some never made it at all because of the crowds.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that 800,000 were accurate. I saw the crowds. I was crammed up against a barricade at Lee Circle for several hours before the parade even started and the crowds started gathering. It was an awe-inspiring experience, despite the cold and the wait.

What most people don’t realize, however, is that the crowd would have been just as large and just as enthusiastic had the Saints lost the Super Bowl. This is, after all, New Orleans in the middle of Carnival. This is a city with a soul like no other. New Orleans loves their Saints, and they love their parades.

I still believe that right now this city is the happiest place on Earth. Eat your heart out, Disney.

In summation of the old year and anticipation of the new…

At last 2009 has departed, not with a bang but a whimper. It was a year of changes and adjustments for me, including getting used to this whole “working from home” concept when one is as catastrophically lazy as I am. It hasn’t always been easy, but it seems to be picking up. I’m adding clients and even, on occasion, getting paid by my clients, though at times reluctantly.

Overall, 2009 was better for me than 2008, which was a year of stress and loss and sorrow. That’s not to say that 2009 was fantastic, but it was certainly better. I’m planning for a stellar 2010.

In April of 2009 my brothers, sister-in-law, nephews, and niece came for their first visit to New Orleans. I spent my time playing tour guide and showing them around, learning unexpectedly that I adore the World War II Museum thanks to my older brother’s interest in it. All had a wonderful time, and my sis-in-law, Bean, has promised to send my brothers down again in April of this year for another visit, sans kids. Kiss my liver goodbye.

In 2009 I went home twice, the first time to attend my 20-year high school reunion and reconnect with people I haven’t seen since graduation. It feels like old times, only better, since we’re all grown up now.

I went home again for a few weeks in December for Christmas with the family, who I usually only see about twice a year. We drank, lost at Trivial Pursuit to my mother, picked on the kids, at a lot, and drank some more.

Throughout the year, I partook of festivals, live music, Mardi Gras both in New Orleans and out in Cajun country, parties, good times with friends…and all without a single evacuation.

Living here is like being on a permanent vacation from which I have to take a break every now and them to get some work done.

My resolutions for 2010 are simple: Exercise more, work more, play more, and, most importantly, write more. Write blogs. Write poetry. Write stories. Write anything. Enjoy life to its fullest, and then capture it on paper so that those who are not lucky enough to live here can still have a taste of life in the Big Easy.

So this might seem a half-assed blog, hastily written and posted in order to post something, but at least it’s written. Welcome to my world.

2010, here I come.

The USS New York Sails Past New Orleans

On October 13, 2009, the USS New York left its birthplace in Avondale, Louisiana, to sail down the Mississippi River on its way to New York, where it will be commissioned before it moves to its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia.

The USS New York is a 684-foot-long amphibious transport dock ship with a crew of 360. Constructed by Northrop Grumman, the New York incorporates steel salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune posted several stories asking residents to get up early and line the bank of the levees to show support for the ship as it passed. They estimated that it would pass sometime between 7:30 and 8 a.m. By 7 a.m. I was waiting for the streetcar to take me to the Quarter. By 7:40 I had arrived and joined the crowd along the Riverwalk to wait in the muggy morning air.

For those waiting, visibility was a disappointing challenge, as the morning fog had not yet lifted, and the other side of the river was almost completely hidden. Barges traveled upriver and the Algiers Point ferry chugged back and forth, and some of us began to wonder if we would even see it pass.

Spectators around me began to hear from sources farther upriver that the launching had been delayed due to the fog.

At 9:45 the fog had still not lifted, but out of the mist appeared the shape of a ship. We waved our American flags and whooped and hollered and hoped that they might see us or hear us. Through the fog we could see that the deck of the ship was lined with sailors waving.

Just as soon as it had appeared, it disappeared into the fog and was gone.

It was a brief moment, but one for which I am entirely glad I dragged my often-too-lazy self out of bed. I felt it was something that I had to do.

In mid-2001, I left Philadelphia for my first job in New York City with a consulting firm on Madison Avenue. On September 11, 2001, we discovered one window in the southwest corner of the building that had a clear view all the way downtown to one of the Towers. We watched it as the flames engulfed it, then watched in horror as it fell.

We were soon evacuated from our building and took refuge with a coworker who lived nearby. At the time I lived in Brooklyn, so taking a subway home was out of the question. We watched the news all day while panicked friends and family tried to reach us. Some people walked over the bridges through the ash to try to get out of the city, inhaling the dust of the dead and the destroyed.

Later that evening my subway line was reopened and I was finally able to get home. Two days later, back at work, a bomb scare and evacuation sent us home again.

Leaving New York was never an option for me afterward, though some friends begged me to return to Pennsylvania. I loved New York and would never give up on it like that. I refused to leave on anyone’s schedule but my own. I still love New York, to visit, but I’m continuing my adventures in other places now.

I’ve on occasion taken visitors to New York to Ground Zero, but it’s a hard thing to see. I still get a lump in my throat, the same one I get from listening to “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch at Yankee Stadium.

I’ve never written about September 11. While I’ve written copious amounts of poetry and blogs about Katrina and its lingering effects on not only me, but also the city of New Orleans, I’ve never been able to put pen to paper to adequately express how much that day in New York affected me.

But I am certain that—though I may never have found the right words—9/11 made an indelible mark in shaping who I am as a writer, as an American, and as a human being.

A letter to the editor appeared on NOLA.com on October 18, 2009, from the commanding officer of the USS New York, Curt Jones, thanking Louisiana residents for lining the levees and showing their support. They could indeed hear and see the people who came to see them.

Personally, I’d like to thank each and every member of that crew for the work they’ve done and for the work they’ll be doing, tirelessly defending our country and protecting its citizens.

Thank you, USS New York.

Godspeed.

Voodoo Rue's PA-cation, Part 2

Someone asked me—after reading my Facebook updates about my road trip home—where home is. Is it New Orleans? Or is it Pennsylvania? Am I leaving home or going home?

I had finally arrived at Lake Winola, Pennsylvania, after an adventurous road trip with (drunken) stops in Nashville and Roanoke. The weather was surprisingly cool, especially compared to the torturous heat we had just endured throughout June in New Orleans, with heat indexes of 110.

It was a nice change to relax and not drive, to stare at a TV instead of the road, and to annoy my mother by constantly complaining about everything she watched on TV.

It had been an unusually cool summer in PA, and I was surprised and pleased. The days were beautiful, and the nights cooler than expected—I even had to pull out my flannel pajamas. The mountains around the lake looked beautiful. One of the reasons I love road-tripping home so much is that I don’t realize how much I miss the mountains until I start seeing them again, somewhere in Georgia or Alabama or Tennessee. I lose track.

I didn’t spend much time at home relaxing, as every trip home is always hectic with trying to see everyone at once. I spent a day jumping up and down on a trampoline with my friend’s two little boys. I spent a night catching up with old friends at the Dalton Carnival, partaking of deep-fried pierogies and cheap beer-tent libations. I’ve learned since migrating south that Southerners are unfamiliar with the joy that is pierogies, and this little Polish girl from Pennsylvania misses them.

The occasion for this trip home was my 20-year high school reunion. I know. It’s scary. I can’t believe it’s been that long. The Lackawanna Trail High School Class of 1989 reunion was held at Keystone College, yet another of my alma maters.

While the idea of a 20-year reunion might be intimidating, it seems that Facebook was able to alleviate much of the stress for a lot of people. We knew a great deal about each other’s whereabouts, spouses, children, careers, hobbies, and just about everything else. I had even joked that since we talk so much on Facebook that we were going to wind up in a room with nothing left to talk about.

The opposite was true. Thanks to Facebook, the ice was already broken for most people, I think, and I had a great time. I have to say, the people in my class look amazing, and some haven’t changed at all since high school. (You know who you are, Michelle.) Some are just louder and full of cheesy Chuck Norris jokes. (That would be me.)

The reunion ended too early for us at the hall and continued at the closest bar, where it did not end until the bar closed.

The experience was totally worth the road trip home, and I’m looking forward to the next reunion, whenever that may be and wherever I may be at the time. (Paris, perhaps?)

My trip also included a weekend trip back to New York City, to traipse around my old stomping ground. I spent most of the time in Hell’s Kitchen, my favorite neighborhood, and made sure to visit Central Park. I do love Central Park and wish I could pick it up and move it to New Orleans. I love the hills and the rambles of Central Park, but I love the Spanish moss, live oaks, and the rogue alligator on the loose in Audubon Park. It doesn’t get any cooler than having and alligator running around free in the park, does it?

My friend Matt and I paid a visit to my favorite restaurant, the Delta Grill, a Louisiana-inspired restaurant. I also made sure to spend some quality time at my two favorite places, the world-famous Don’t Tell Mama piano bar, and Kennedy’s Irish Restaurant. At Don’t Tell Mama, the staff is mostly the same since I left, though they have lost some wonderful entertainers who have passed way, moved away, or left for personal reasons. It’s still the best entertainment anywhere in the city for a Broadway fanatic like me.

At Kennedy’s, on any given afternoon I can still find the old regulars at the bar, telling the same jokes. The bartenders are still the same cute Irish lads who greet me with a kiss on the cheek and still remember what I drink, even after all these months.

It was a quick trip. I miss New York sometimes but am happy to ride streetcars instead of subways now, to wear shorts in the winter instead of coats and scarves, to sit on balconies and not fire escapes, and to enjoy parades with abandon instead of just watching from behind a barricade.

I left two days later to begin my journey back to New Orleans, with the flu. I felt like crap but still loved being on the road. I stopped only once, outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, to rest my weary, mucus-addled brain, and arrived home the following afternoon.

So which is home? New Orleans or Pennsylvania? Both. I have spent almost 30 of my 38 years in Pennsylvania, and I still have many good friends there. It will always be home. I spent more than five years total in New York City, so even still I feel at home there. But more than anything I have forged a deep relationship with New Orleans since coming here prior to Katrina, and this is definitely my home.

It seems no matter which way I’m traveling, I’m always headed home.