life is junior high.

when i was 13 years old, there was a boy that lived directly next door. he was a year older than me. a goof. the boy who would catch frogs at the end of the street in the storm drain and then try to sell them. he wore thick, black (red?)-framed glasses. he was in even in a local commercial for some bank. his bedroom overlooked our driveway, and some nights he would try to play guitar for me and i would sit in the driveway below and listen. he had a basketball goal in his driveway, and when i would come home from school, wearing my st. catherine "class of 97" shirt and gym shorts, we would just shoot baskets over and over and over until it got dark. he would start water balloon fights that lasted for days. we laughed a lot. and we would talk. we talked about everything. we would have serious conversations about religion and life. as "serious" and "knowledgeable" as you can be at a wise 13 years of age. i didn't think we were anything but really good friends. Two people who happened to be in the same place at the same time who had a lot of fun together. Maybe he was my first "crush," but i was too young to realize that. We were good friends.

one day, i realized there was a party going on next door. i knew it was his 14th birthday. he was having a birthday party and i realized that i wasn't invited. i was so hurt, i cried.

tom brokaw gave the commencement address when i graduated from college. after his obligatory mentioning of "the greatest generation," he said some of the most wise words i've heard. He said "Life is not college. Life is not high school. Life is junior high."

[from his 2009 address to the graduates of William and Mary], he continued, "You'll be astonished by how much of the rest of your life will be consumed by the same petty jealousies you encountered in adolescence, the same irrational juvenile behavior, the cliques, the dumb jokes and the hurt feelings.

And to the women of the class of 2009, be forewarned:
These boys sitting beside you who are about to become men will take their inner boy-and their baseball caps and their sports teams-with them and they will never completely understand you."

we'll always have paris.

i went to barnes and nobles when it reopened for the first time after the storm a few weeks ago. mmm. it was nice to have barnes and nobles back. no older gentlemen approaching me at the new fiction table. it just felt good.

i picked up this book from the new paperback fiction table because i was struck by the name. we'll always have paris. obviously i thought about brett and the promise i made to him that i would one day see paris with him. that was our phrase, borrowed from the movie, casablanca (which i'm ashamed to say i've never seen). i bought the book. it's by an australian writer who dropped everything to move to paris to follow a woman that he had fallen for. (romantic, much?) and then wrote about it.

he writes like i write. very stream of consciencness. he'll start a chapter by telling me about a move to a new apartment in paris. and in the next 10 to 15 pages will talk about the buildings, the street, the cafes in the arrondisment - who once walked there, who once ate there, who once passed out there. the writers, the artists, the love affairs, the vices. along the way, he takes you back to the paris of the 20s and 30s.

i've never been to paris, but if it is ANYthing like this book describes, i know i'm going to be a sponge when i go.

i'm pretty sure i could never pick up and move to paris. (not like i could pickup and live in england, anyway.) i don't think i could get completely used to the lifestyle, the people, or the politics. the culture, yes.

i realized though that the reason i am absorbed by this book is because i do live in this paris that he describes. kinda.

saturday night, after the french quarter fest, we wandered around the quarter looking for a place to sit and watch the election results come in.

(honestly. i don't think you could find that anywhere else. half a city watching the news in bars. i couldn't make that up if i tried. we live in a city where we live below sea level, we eat crawfish, and we treat a mayoral race like a sporting event.)



we duck into this bar called "sidebar" (cute, right?) tiny place. we didn't stay because there was no place to sit down. but on the walls there were old pictures, the lighting was subdued, people were talking to the people at the next table (despite political convictions). there was a side alley that looked like the one vangogh had painted in his "cafe terrance at arles" we walked up to bourbon street, but that wasn't where we wanted to be. we walked back to a few dimly lit, old school, new orleans niches. i was reminded of the bar thats in pirate's alley. right next to st. louis cathedral and this great used bookstore called "the faulkner house" (appropriately named - william faulkner actually lived there. they have a vintage absinthe advertisment with vangogh's self-portrait on it (ironically, the selfportrait done AFTER he cut off his ear. be careful with the green fairy, vince)

an article right after katrina in the weekly standard mentioned this very nook in a litany of places - some of which we discovered and talked about that night... "

"Or if you've ever downed Pimm's cups and oyster Po' Boys at Napoleon House on Chartres, one of the most hospitable places on the planet to kill an evening. Or if you've ever pulled an all-nighter in Pirate's Alley off Jackson Square, with fantasists in buccaneer shirts clanking their broadswords after dipping too deeply into the bourbon."

john baxter has his paris. i have my new orleans.

gary.

we have our own personal homeless man at 501 frenchmen st. a few weeks ago, on a monday, we noticed that there was a grungy mattress wedged in the window alcove on the corner of the building. hmm. we didn't think too much of it until we came back from lunch that day and found this guy sitting on it.

i named the guy gary. he looks like he could've been a gary in his previous-hopefully-sheltered-3-piece-suit life.

not only did gary have the typical "i'm a bum on the street" look, he had turned around to reveal this bald, raw, bleeding spot on the back of his head. it looked as if something had literally just taken a chunk out of his scalp. it was NOT pretty. he seemed out of it then, and by the grace of God, there happened to be a wonderful NOPDer walking the street when we had to walk OVER gary to get through our door. with him, we asked gary if he was ok or if he wanted us to look at the giant hole in the back of his head or get him to a hospital or SOMEthing. he didn't, and the policeman gently told him he just coulnd't stay there. he picked up his extra coat and walked away.

well, about 3 weeks later, gary is back. now he has a couch, 2 extra coats, a pair of women's jeans, and he STILL has a giant hole in the back of his head.

i don't get it, it's like he has defied all laws of biology - it's still oozing, but it hasn't spread. sure, it's GOT to be infected, but how has it not spread? how can he still be walking around with a giant chunk taken out of his scalp? it doesn't look like a gunshot or a like he was hit. it almost looks like it was the result of an EXTREMELY angry hairsylist because his hair is wild except in the area of the aforementioned chunk. gary, charity "hospital" is open in lord and taylor; go there or let me practice first-aid on you.

so his "home" - ie his couch - is now right outside of my window in my cubbyhole of an office. i hear him heckling people. i actually started to worry that he would catch me looking through my window at his missing scalp and come flying through the window at me. it's not like he's worried about being cut wiht shattering glass - just look at the back of his head.

robyn, of course, felt it was her duty to call the police on this guy. she felt personally threatened. so we watched through the window as not one, not two, but FOUR policemen came to the rescue. it's good to know that we've got some quick and numerous first-responders back in the area. it made me feel safer on a block where there was a fatal shooting last weekend.

gary was encouraged to leave once again, and the next day someone hauled his couch away. i hope he, at the very least, got some medical professional to look at his head. i haven't seen him since. it's a hell of a time to be homeless in this city. if you see gary, let me know.

i've officially been working in my office for 4 months. hard to believe. you know i come home with tons of stories. life stories, disease stories, katrina stories. i like listening. and doing that sympathetic touch on the arm that says, 'yeah, im right there with you.' in the time, i've managed to pick out some of my favorite patients. i really like considering them "my" patients - as if i'm the one treating them. they are the ones that recognize my voice on the phone or will ask for me or the ones that can say their first name and i know EXACTLY who it is.

today, one of my patients called. it was weird because i had talked about him at dinner last night - he was a bartender at the restaurant we went to, so i looked for him. obviously, i mentioned this to him on the phone. i could instantly tell he was very out of it. i made an appointment for him for the afternoon. now, he had started coming in only 3 weeks ago, and in those three weeks, we had seen him maybe 5 times. robyn pulled me aside one of the times and says "he's telling him he's got HIV" jeez. what news. he had been put on a drug regimen for the HIV, but he was also losing weight very very quickly.

HIV and AIDS are diseases that are "trendy" - everyone seems to want to support finding a cure/vaccine. patients get a lot of support. and with all of the current drug regimens for HIV/AIDS, people aren't FRIGHTENED of the disease. up until about 10 years ago, the treatment consisted of the AZT cocktail, and patients were taking a bunch of pills a bunch of times a day (and the side effects weren't very tolerable either). now, they are down to 4 pills a day on average. the time it takes for the virus to become resistant to the meds has been extended.

i think it's forgotten that there are more dangerous epidemics out there (malaria kills the most people every year - a disease spread by mosquitoes - damn buggers). but until you see someone deteriorate the way this patient did in THREE WEEKS, you can't understand how scary this disease really is.

so the patient came in. kc sent him for a chest xray. by the time i was ready to leave for the day, the radiologist called us to tell us that he didn't even know how to interpret the xrays. basically, he need to be admitted to the hospital ASAP. i had to call kc at home, he wanted to let him know, and he even met him at touro's ER. (reason number 472 why i love kc and want to be him when i grow up)

i can't get it out of my head.

my usual route to work takes me down airline drive to the interstate. i was stopped at one of the traffic lights that FINALLY started working, and there were four cars lined up waiting to go. i'm sitting in my car singing along to jessica molaskey on martini 106.1 ("how come you aint got me?" - one of those songs that i just wait all day to hear because i love it). i look at the other cars (and i'm sure they were judging me because i was singing by myself). the other drivers must have been on their way to work as well. however, they did NOT look as happy as i was to be singing along to a great song. maybe they hadn't had their coffe yet. i'm not sure.

SO. my leftbrain starts thinking. we live in a city without a strong mass transit system. (i love the streetcar, but it's not going to get me to work in the morning) and not many people are concerned with carpooling, as evident by the the four cars i saw this morning with one or two people in them. obviously, you're going to shout "what about the environment??" now for a second, i'm going to ignore all the environmental issues (oil prices, ozone layer, global warming, yada yada yada). i'm guessing the average commute is about 20-30 minutes. i find that i do some good thinking during that time. i have my cup of coffee - which i've only spilled on myself 4 times in the 4 months i've been working, thank ya very much. i started wondering whether we need that time to ourselves in the morning. time to wake up. time to think. if i was going to go back to psychology research, i would wonder if that morning commute - either by yourself or with a carpool - affects your social skills. do people who carpool - aka forced to socialize at the early hour - have an easier or hard time dealing with people all day? does that fact that they can't chose their own radio station AND deal with traffic AND deal with the other people in the car make those precious 30 minutes a pain in the ass and therefore sets the tone for the day? do the people who get to casually enjoy the ride arrive at work with a brighter disposition - maybe because of the simple fact that could sing or laugh or spill coffee on themselves without judgement from other early morning commuters? if someone knows if this study has been done, let me know; i'm curious now.


raaaaaandom, i know. maybe no one but me enjoys that drive in the morning.

and for the love of all that is good and holy, would someone PLEASE fix the bubbling crater in the middle of esplanade ave that has been there at least for the last 3 months now. it drives me crazy.

my first half-marathon

an essay.


about 2 months ago, my mother had the brilliant idea.

"hey, we should do the mardi gras half-marathon!"

sure mom, have you seen me try and run? i'm the dancer, remember?

"no no we'll just walk it. we have four hours to finish it"

so i let her think we were definitely doing it, but i kinda figured the idea would die. i don't run. everyone knows this. i don't have the attention span for it - i get bored with the idea of traveling a great distance by foot for no other reason but to be traveling. i'm all about supporting OTHER people, however. i drove 7 hours to watch megan run the boilermaker in upstate new york. i got up early to watch em cross the finish line in providence. (both times, i was part of making EXCELLENT signs of encouragement)

but we got closer and closer to the "race" and i realized my mom was serious about this. then the day came when she REGISTERED the two of us online.

i think to myself "oh shit, i'm ACTUALLY going to have to do this."

the week before the big day, i think, hmm i should probably hop on the treadmill and TRY to go for more than 2 miles. you know, just to see how it feels. i did it, but it still wasn't NEAR the 13.1 miles i was going to have to do on the following sunday. but i guess that would serve as my "training."

we got up early to pick up our race packets at the race "expo" on saturday morning. t-minus 24 hours till the starting line. i thought this expo would be simple - we go. we pick up our race numbers. maybe we get a free tshirt. we leave to eat tons of carbs to prepare our bodies for the torture it's going to endure the next day.

i was wrong. this expo was the most serious thing ive ever seen. i can tell you. these "serious" runners are intense. you would NOT believe the merchandise you can purchase before each of these races. shorts, sports bras, special cool-max shirts, gloves, ear warmers, socks, shoes (seriously, if you don't have running shoes by this point in the game, you need to ask yourself if you should be running a marathon the next day). water bottle holders, ipod holders, key holders. creams, energy gels, nipple guards.

i swear to you. nipple guards. they protect you from nipple abrasion, apparently.

(hold the phone, i say to myself, i did NOT sign up for nipple abrasion. what the heck am i getting myself into?)

i survived the expo, i got my outfit and music together, and i ate lots of carbs. i was as ready as i was going to be to survive 13 miles.

we were downtown by 6:30 on sunday morning. it was dark when we left, but the sun was just starting to come up over the new orleans skyline by the time we picked up krentel and got to the superdome. there were 3,000 people there. a lot from out-of-town, a lot from the area, a lot of serious runners, a lot of people in costume. (that's what i like to see! my kind of people) we all lined up and listened to the national anthem. at 7am, we made our way across the starting line.

no turning back now.

we ran/walk down poydras to decatur, took a left on decatur. we passed a guy that was running backwards. he handed out cards saying three things: 1. it was his birthday. 2. he collected pins, but lost most of them in house in the lower ninth ward. and 3. he was running the whole thing backwards. around the same time, we started talking to a young woman named allison who was from DC. she said her friends were at the cafe du monde with a cowbell, and that we'd have to look out for them. they were our first cheerleaders, so even if it was only like 1.5 miles into it, it felt good to be cheered on.

we got to esplanade ave and started running/walking towards city park. people kept asking us "hey, yall are doing the marathon! good for you." and we kept correcting them saying "oooooh no we are NOT that serious - we're just doing the half" this happened four or five times before someone says, "well you're wearing the marathon shirt, not the half marathon" well, at the "expo" someone messed up and gave us the wrong free tshirt. basically, we got a 90 dollar tshirt for 45. good deal.

got to city park and started making our way around it to mirabeau. this was where the race course took us to some pretty bad parts of the city. where the water line was taller than me, and houses still stand with mold growing up the walls. but here, we were running/walking between a group dressed as MREs and a group dressed as willy wonka, a hershey kiss, and a oompa loompa. i felt like i shouldve worn my mardi gras boa.

at this point, we ended up backtracking some of the way back around city park. it was mentally challenging. this was when i got bored, but we were past half-way so i had this newfound energy to keep going. i said some prayers, put on some more music, and kept on truckin'

and then i hit city park avenue. they guided me to moss street where they promised "water, bathrooms, and ice-cold beer" it was as if the people on moss street were waiting for a mardi gras parade. there were people sitting on the grass by the bayou on one side, and people on the house porches on the other side of the street. they had made a giant sign saying "turn for the worse" and as promised, were handing out beer and mimosas for those who wanted them. (i knew i had about 4 miles to go - so i passed). they had mardi gras music. they were cheering me on as if i was FIRST in the race.

THAT was new orleans, my dear ones, right there on moss street. THAT was what we are all about. i might as well have been second lining in a mardi gras parade.

by that point, i was so far ahead of my mom, and i honestly thought krentel had quit by this point, and was enjoying a cafe au lait somewhere uptown. with 3 miles to go, i slowed down along banks street so that i made sure i finished with my mom. after all, she was the one who forced me into this. around mile 12, we met the biggest and most enthusiastic group of key-clubbers - high schoolers that were probably all displaced during the storm, but are back now trying to regain some kind of normal activity, like doing a keyclub service project at the crack of dawn. (sure, that sounds familiar)

the 12 mile mark was at the end of banks street and it was right underneath a street light where someone had painted up to the water mark to make it look like water. cute in a sick kind of way.

the last 1.1 miles were tough physically - like the city park miles were tough mentally. my feet hurt by this point. but the superdome was in our sight. before we knew it, we were feet from the finish line and we had just ran/walked 13.1 miles through the city of new orleans. we crossed the finish line at 3 hours and 10 minutes. (3 hours and 7 minutes was our OFFICIAL time) mom started crying which only made me cry. it was poignant.

when i walked passed the finishing area (with bottles and bottles of gatorade), i saw chris rose from the times pic (which is like seing a celebrity for me). we met debbie who told us john was indeed still in the race, just waaaaay behind us. and there were about 500 people still lining the ramps of the superdome, waiting to cheer people on as they came across the finish line. a lot of positive energy to go along with all those endorphins just surging through my body.

we did it. all 13.1 miles. and it was glorious. i can't wait to do it again. once i get over my soreness. they don't make enough ib profen, i tell you.

crescent city classic, here we come!

the end. (wow, this could be as long as the marathon itself.)

i love the quarter in the morning.

despite running late this morning, i decided to stop at the cc's in the quarter on my way to work. it's at the corner of royal st and st. philip st., in the same block as the cornstalk hotel. i know they are only open 5 hours a day during the week, just long enough to caffinate all the quarter crazies in the morning. i've gone maybe once a week since they have been open, and i'll tell you - they have the HAPPIEST people working there. the first time i went, i got a cafe au lait, and they all started chanting "au laaaait, au lait, au lait, au laaaaait" - i couldn't stop laughing.

well today, my favorite baristas were celebrating carnivale with beads and hats and balloons. cc's was PACKED with people at 9am. every table was filled with chattering people. and upbeat chattering people - which is always wonderful to see. i bumped into a guy wearing this black velour cape and a bone necklace. and there i was with my scrubs and plum st snoball tshirt and green converse. we gave each other this look up and down and wished each other a good day. while waiting for my coffee, i look over to the corner and lo and behold, right there in cc's, a brass band was setting up. no lie. and the band members were diverse - 2 of them looked like the just hopped over from the CBD to play for a little while and the rest of them looked like they should've been part of the second line parade and do this for a living. how cool. i have no idea where they came from or who they were or how long they were going to play. believe you me, if i didn't have an office to take care of, i would've found a piece of wall to lean against in cc's to listen.

i tell ya. only in new orleans would you walk into your favorite coffeeshop on a friday morning and find a brass band. once again, my coffee addiction pays off.

and look at me - i just wrote all of that while on hold with blue cross/blue shield. i love my job.

happy friday!