How I became the Bitter Knitter....

I was going to write this great blog about how so many people came to the market & how I made this amazing fortune. Unfortunately, only 4 people came to see me at the market, & only 1 of them actually purchased anything. Of the remaining 3, one was my ride home, Matty Whips. Thanks so much to my fave straight couple (insofar as my heterophobia will permit), Paul von Munchausen & Sassy Kelsey for keeping my spirits up!

I made one other sale & that (plus the previous sale) covered the cost of my new tent, if not the booth rental fee, so by the time I was riding home, the bitterness pretty much grabbed hold. I couldn't even make it out of the house for a free Katey Redd show at the Healing Center! Now you know that is bad.

The bitterness kinda had me by the throat thru the weekend. I was angry & resentful & depressed & just feeling all crossed up until I finally let it just explode all over the blog.

Working with kids is bringing up all sorts of stuff from my tragic childhood & it is dangerous to combine this with 2 dismal Art Market failures...

Today, however, a NORTA mishap brought back my joy. I missed 1 Magazine bus & so didn't arrive at Canal St until 4:10 (leaving me 4 minutes to get from Magazine St to N. Rampart to catch the Franklin bus home. Needless to say, I saw the bus from about 2 blocks away & when I made it to N. Rampart, it was long gone. Ever resourceful, I took the Canal Streetcar to catch the Broad St Bus. Well, after I got off the streetcar I sat down at the bench at the Broad bus stop & struck up a conversation with an older black lady sitting next to me, the way you do. Well, the way I do. We shared stories of NORTA glam, frustration with dealing with City Hall, and realized we were both going the same way, for the same reason. We just had a lovely chat. Then the bus came. It was PACKED. Someone was kind enough to give up their seat to my newfound friend & she offered to hold my bag while I was standing. Right after that, some1 got off & offered me their seat, so I sat behind Miss Lady and we chatted a bit more & then she started to walk up to the front of the bus (we were in the back) & I realized that we were both getting off at the same stop. Well, lo & behold, my new friend, Miss Lorraine, lives right at the corner of Painters St & Gentilly Blvd (AKA less that 1.5 blox from my house). We chatted a bit more as I walked her to her door, that's when we introduced ourselves.

I couldn't stop smiling as I walked away. Writing this makes me realize that life is like this sometimes, even though you think you are having to take a big detour & go out of your way, along the way you find treasures that have been at your feet the whole time.

I hope that sounds profound...I feel profoundly grateful. Hopeful once more. Glad I just paid the entry fees for the Bayou Road Brewhaha this weekend & feeling confident that things will turn up, just as long as I keep moving & finding new ways to solve problems.

Thanks for reading!

I hope none of the kids at my school ever has to write something like this.

My Glossary of Curse Words
by: sAm RaY, age 8

Ass: is where he hits you, with the belt or his hands, if you are lucky & he is not too mad.

Asshole: the taste of coke cans with cigarette butts inside of them on  the morning after their friends come by.

Bitch: the light from the living room shining in your eye & the sound of a slap & a sob from your mother.

Cocksucker: a punch in the guts while blood runs in your eye, the smoke curling off the end of the inevitable roach clip laying in the ashtray.

Cunt: his workmen, telling you to save the smell of the secretaries if they let them put your fingers in there, as they laugh and take off on some job or another with him.

Dick: the feel of his hands around your red raw aching throat, as he spits the word and his own spit all over your teary face and he bangs the wall behind you with your own head.

Faggot: the feel of Dana Gair’s slap on the back of your neck as it turns red at the same time as your cheeks and you burst out crying in front of the entire second grade class.

Fairy: your mother’s face all screwed up, talking about an elementary school teacher of hers and how mean all the kids were to him.

Goddammit: the pillow over your face, him screaming “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP” until you can’t get enough air in to scream, the smell and taste of head sweat clogging up your throat until you pass out.

Motherfucker: the feel of the car swerving around in those few seconds’ right before the glass breaks and the whole world is thrown around for a loop, and you bite your tongue and just for a second everything goes slow & you can just see, just for a second, a perfect round bubble of spit and blood hover in the air of the backseat of the Karmen Ghia before everything speeds up again and the bubble bursts all over your face.

Nigger-lover: running thru the house as he chases you around when he finds out your imaginary friend is named “Lakeida” before you change it into something more acceptable & gender neutral like “Akka & Bock”

Puss, Puss, Pusssssy: sitting around the dinner table with your aunt saying she can’t hear him saying it over & over again under his breath as he sits between you and her and her calling you a liar.

Son of a bitch: waiting for the train to pass at the second set of railroad tracks on Paul Mallard Road, coming from the river; the feel of his rough calloused hands grabbing your hair from the front seat of the car and just popping your head off the back of your mother’s head rest.

I told you it wasn't over...

So just after I blogged last night I got a text from Mo Gumbo:

"JESUS! I hope nothing is terribly wrong with you!"

& this morning I got an e-mail:

"Maybe you are out of town
Sent messages and texts. Don't understand how thus is going. 

So your pissed?  Hung up on you while upset.  Ok. 
That has nothing to do with my daughter or my grandmother. I am willing to pay you for what was my grandmothers.  If I am irrational or whatever you think, fine. 
That does not excuse your inability to respond. 

Martha can stop by. 
If I don't hear from you, I think it would be sad to have to have help with this. 
200.00?  

Please." 




OK this is me again. I guess this foolishness has gone on long enough. I am not interested in holding this ugly ass bag hostage & frankly I have more knitting needles than I can possibly ever use. I am thinking of texting her something along these lines:

"My address has not changed. Send the return post box & I will send you the bag & some needles in exchange for not having to communicate with you any more. I am not angry & I do forgive you, but I am not participating in your madness any further."

Some hoes can't take a hint...

....or Crazy Hoes I have known, the Unfolding Saga.

Last night while I was sleeping, I received 5 pages worth of text messages & a voicemail from "Do Not Answer" AKA the one & only Mo Gumbo (whom you will surely remember from August's blog "Saying Goodbye").

"Sent u email. No response. Please. If there is something you need, let me take care of something for you in exchange for my grandma's bag and some needles. My daughter, Mini Gumbo is learning to knit and we are goint to take a class together. I get ya about 60 and again when I get paid next Friday. Could wire. Or visit or wishlist. If you no longer have them it's ok. Not trying to Indian give (Bitch, Please. This is the definition of Indian giving.) Just thought if you don't care it would be nice for us to use them and it should have nothing to do with you being mad at me for hanging up on you in the midst of my worst point."


I am really glad I didn't get woken up by this madness. The fact that she cannot conceptualise that I am not mad, I just don't care tells me that she & I do not inhabit the same reality & we do not need to be communicating.

"I sent you an email & didn't get a response & I sent you some texts & you didn't respond & I looked for you on Facebook but you're not on there any more...I don't know, I can't imagine this is all because I hung up on you when I was going thru some shit. I just don't get it...But I sent you text messages...I think I already talked to you about my grandma's knitting needles. I'll send you a hundred bucks & a return priority postage paid box to send the bag and some needles in. & if not, you'll have a hundred bucks, I don't know if you'll send them to me..call me back"

You will notice that at no time do I see or hear the word sorry any place in here. & I don't know what email she has been using but it is clearly not one of the ones I have checked daily for the last 5 years or so.

12 hours later, while I am at work I get another phone call from Do Not Answer & a voicemail & then around 1 PM I get another phone call from a number that's not in my phone book but has the same area code as Do Not Answer.I got a text that said: "Please get back to me" followed but not 1 but 2 txts with phone numbers in them.

After I got out of work, I listened to her voicemail. Desperately unhappy at not getting her way.

"Hi. I'm sorry if you think I've dropped the ball...I've sent you emails, you don't respond.I don't know what to do, if do you have a bill or something I can pay, I'll pay your cell phone bill for the next few months, in exchange for the needles & the bag if you're not attached to it, I'm not trying to be a bitch about this but I thought I talked to you about this already. & I'm sick & lots is going but I can't believe you're bitching...or not bitching, but being non-responsive because I hung up on you when I've seen you forgive people for shitloads worse sins...but just let me do something really huge for you in exchange for something really small. I don't even know if you're at the same address, so I kinda don't wanna send a hundred dollar bill, but just please text me or call me or something. Please!"

I think this is some kind of a test from God. Lord knows getting the bills paid is my #1 priority but the price tag is too high. I know this ho too well to be getting up into something like this with her. As my friend Agnes says, "How can she be so ignorant?"

I keep asking myself the same thing. But I have the feeling like Mo Gumbo is not gonna let go of this. I just do not wanna have any more interactions with her. I'm not angry at her for hanging up on me, it made my decision that much easier. I'm tired of riding the crazy train & I'm not interested in another ride.

Weird & Wacky LRW Week-end!

This past week was a blessed time of knitting & serenity out in the Ville with my grrl Sandi. Even though there were mishaps galore for those around us, we had our own little island of calm during my Fall Break from ISL.

I came home a day early (Thursday) & spent the time knitting & getting prepared for the Oleg Cassini (actually Oretha Castle Haley, but I like Oleg Cassini better) Art Market on Saturday & planning to attend the Coliseum Square Neighborhood Association Art Market on Sunday.

Prior to all of this, I had asked around amongst friends if anyone had a pop-up fest-style tent that I could borrow for the weekend. My fave Black Dyke LRW, Kris, said that her mom had one & that they would give me a ride to the Art Market on the day of the event. I confirmed our plans via text on Friday evening plans were set for her mom & her to pick me up at 8AM. Around that time, I hadn't heard from them, so I txted Kris "Hello?" & she txted back that they were running late & that her mom is not one for timeliness. They showed up a few minutes later & after we get all my stuff into the SUV & meet her mom (grrrl she is AWESOME, btw, laughs & cutting up galore--an LRW from way back, I promise) & I said, "Thank you for the ride & the tent"

Then Miss Baby is like "About the tent...." Oh Lawd. Here we go. She had a tent & her cousin had a tent & they exchanged tents & then the cousin retrieved her tent some kinda way without returning Miss Baby's tent but she needs another tent anyway so....

"So does this story end with me getting out of this car with a tent? Cuz that was kinda the whole point."

Miss Baby say they have tents at Winn Dixie. I say, We just passed it up grrl, make a u-turn.

Kris & I power-walk up into the WD on Chef Menteur Hwy & spot a $20 gazebo style tent.
What neither of us LRWs realized is that this is NOT a pop-up tent. This is, in fact, a tent with about 30 or so metal rods that have to be either fitted into each other OR into one of 5 plastic hubs. There are also feet that have to be attached. So before you know it, there I am with 2 generations of LRWs on Oleg Cassini Blvd, trying to assemble this madness. I don't think that I mentioned that Kris's mother is not wearing shoes (I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS WOMAN!!) Once we have it up, they take off to a funeral & the tent looks good. I hang my scarves from the supports just like I always do. Unfortunately, there is no way to stabilize the feet of this tent (kinda hard to put tent pegs into sidewalks, by the way) so it keeps weebling & wobbling around. Good thing I had my knitting to occupy me or I would have had a nervous breakdown. Any time I actually looked at the tent I got a major case of anxiety, just imagining my poor little babies being blown away by a freak gust of wind. I met a few interesting ppl but made only 1 sad little $15 sale. Not even enough to cover cab fare, much less the booth rental.

When it was all over, I learned that if an item requires at least 3 (preferably 4) to assemble it, it will probably be an ordeal for 1 ho to dis-assemble it. But dis-assemble it I did, packed up my brightly-colored delights & called a cab, completely flummoxed as to how I was gonna pull it off for another market today.

So I was feeling kinda down about it all last night when I told a friend of mine from the gay site about what had happened in a very general way & he sent me a flurry of messages, offering to take some of my work up to Wisconsin, where he is from, next weekend, and eventually we ended up on the phone, talking business. I told him, I don't usually trust my work to people I haven't met in person, so I really must insist we get together for a meal. So we made brunch plans for today.

I cancelled my attendance at the Coliseum Square based on a combination of factors, including tent drama, poor sales & the prospect of a brunch date.

So when he gets here, he's just how he looks in the pictures, ruggedly handsome, bright blue eyes & a little older than me, early 50s. He comes in, we talk a bit, I show him some of my babies. There is definitely a lot of chemistry between us, some huggin & things & then he says, well here's something about me that you didn't see on the website, I have a prosthetic foot.

At this point, I figure I have 3 options. Acknowledge him & accept it, freak out & reject him or ignore it & just go to brunch and then blow him off afterwards.

I'm glad I chose the 1st one. He's had a fascinating life, done a lot of travelling, lived in really cool places. I had made reservations for us at Café Degas, but this is how the conversation went with them:

--Café Degas?
--I'd like to make a reservation, please.
--Hold on.
clunk, click, clatter
people talking to each other
I hear the man who answered the phone's voice
--Can you take this reservation?
indistinct murmuring
click clunk clatter
Woman's Voice
--Hello?
(I'm thinking, bitch you are not on your cell phone, you are at work, where are your manners??)
--I'd like to make a reservation, please.
--OK What time?
--11:45 AM tomorr--
--We don't serve that late.
--Tomorrow, at 11:45 AM.
--Oh.
(audible page flicking)
--What time?
--11:45AM.
--How many?
--2
--What's the name?
--Sam
--What?
--Sam
--Can you spell that?
--Ess Ay Em, grrl
--Oh, Sam!
--Yes, that's it.
--OK.
--OK?
--See you tomorrow.

You can see why I felt like maybe if the people who answer the phone are that inept, maybe it would be better to find brunch elsewhere.

So I cancelled our reservations there & we went over to The Ruby Slipper, but there was a huge crowd of ppl waiting to be seated. So we went to Martinique Bistro & were one of the 1st tables there.

He had the Oyster Chowder, followed by the Rolled Omelet with Roasted Potatoes & I had the Sautéed Escargot followed by the Pork Tenderloin "Grillades" with Stone Ground Chèvre Grits. The food was delicious & the service was reasonable, although I did find the staff a tad, shall we say, under-dressed. I don't care what anyone says, a Saints Jersey is not an appropriate work uniform if you work in a restaurant where 2 courses without alcohol totals up to $52, I'm Just Saying.... The kitchen moved awfully slowly to say that we were only the 2nd table, but when our food did arrive, it was certainly worth the wait. The under-dressed waiter seated us in a particularly sunny spot, so we skipped dessert & headed back here for a little, shall we say, dessert of our own.

During lunch, he had disclosed to me that he takes blood thinners to avoid clots in the veins near his prosthesis & this sometimes has a particular side effect common to many men. I am willing to work around this. But we got back up over here, he's crazy bout my body hair, I'm having fun, he's having fun, we're having fun, so I think. But eventually he got frustrated and decided to leave. I tried to talk him out of it but he was clearly self-conscious and there was no talking him out of it. After he put his foot back on & got dressed, we talked a bit more business & I gave him a few items to take up to this Craft Show that his mother attends in Wisconsin. He says he think they will sell just bc they are from NOLA. I hope so.

We will see each other again in November. Let's see where this adventure takes me...

Meanwhile, tomorrow is back to work at multi-lengual behavior disorder central elementary.
I am not having anxiety about it yet. That will come soon enough, I feel sure.
I have been meaning to blog about so many things but sometimes I don't feel like I should for fear of being sued by some parent or something & other times I wanna blog about Crazy Hoes I have known, but again, static from the parents & also lately I'm just so damn tired all the time I can't stand it. I am not bad in the AM, but getting up at 5:45 every day sucks. You can keep all those damn sunrises, I'll take a sunset instead. But I really don't appreciate having to see both of them.

Sorry bout that last part. Rant over.

Blog over.

Resuming my knitting & Peter Davison as Dr Who Years Marathon to assuage my troubled soul...

Ambushed.....

So this last week at work was a toughie, to say the least. As you will remember from previous posts, I am a teacher's assistant for 2 classes of 3rd graders in a French Immersion school. The teachers are a French man & a Senegalese woman. The Frenchman's class is like behavior disorder central, with one of the students in particular being the butterfly whose wings cause hurricanes. Her whole day is a series of freak-outs, to the point where having to deal with this girl gives me anxiety. I seriously dread dealing with this girl. Miss Senegal's class is well-behaved as she is strict and yells at them a lot.

Anyway, I got an email from the Principal a few days ago, asking me to shadow another assistant in another class for the 1st two hours of the last couple of days. After the 1st day of that, the Lead Teacher (aka not either of the teachers I work for) of 3rd grade pulled me aside & wanted to talk to me about how things were going. I was very direct with her. I told her that I have had more training to wait tables and that I find the Frenchman dismissive & uncommunicative, while Miss Senegal the Tooth-Sucker at least has tasks for me when I arrive in class, little piles of paper with Post-Its on them. We talked about the  situation overall, about cultural differences and expectations and clarification of my role, and I definitely got the impression that there had been some discussion about my job performance amongst the staff and at the end of it, I felt good that I had finally received some sort of feedback. Some of it was negative, to be sure, but at the very least, I felt like Miss Lead Teacher heard what I said.

So yesterday after we dismissed the kids, I found out that that I had a meeting with Miss Senegal, the Frenchman & Miss Lead. Right then. About me. Miss Lead came in with a feedback form, (various criteria on a scale of 1-4 I think, such as "Speaks the Target Language with Students" and "Fosters learning environment") and Miss Senegal had the class & good taste to point out the imperfections in my French, such as switching up masculine/feminine nouns and sometimes just approximating a word in French from either of the other languages I speak. She had a laugh about my saying "calculation" instead of "calcul," for example. The Frenchman, on the other hand, said that my "register" with the kids is not right & I say "bad words" like "dégueulasse" for "disgusting" or "gamin" instead of "enfant" for "kid."

This was starting to get hard to take & I was hoping we could just stick to the criteria, and go on to the next checklist item. But no. Miss Senegal seized the occasion to enumerate every misstep I've made since August 29th.

--From the very first day, you walked into class, you didn't know what the students were doing, they might have been taking a test & you said "Bonjour les enfants" with enthusiasm in your voice, and you perturbed the whole class. The next week, you were too nice to the kids & always sucking your teeth & then you bragged to me  about having 2 Master's degrees and said you didn't like making photocopies...

This is where I had to break in. "No, you misunderstand. I never said that. I don't have 2 Masters, and what I didn't like was being sent to make double-sided photocopies without being given a code for the machine & every other person in the teachers' lounge just watching me have a problem & ignoring my requests for help so they could keep eating and talking about their vacation plans."

This didn't slow down Miss Senegal though, she didn't miss a beat and continued to present her skewed POV on the last few weeks, telling me that I help the kids too much when they are supposed to be doing individual work & the 1st time she asked me to do remedial work 1-on-1 with the kids, I refused (a flat lie--she had taken me by surprise once by asking me to tutor a kid in a subject I wasn't familiar with) and when I did, "my attitude" showed her that I didn't want to do it, and the one time she let me lead the class in a subject, I went too far explaining rounding numbers, and the other time she left me alone with the kids, she came back in and they were talking too much. She seemed really put out that I asked to be shown how to do things, evidently I should be able to figure out how to grade tests without answer keys or use a completely unfamiliar grading scale just by observing, so "in all frankness" she asked, "How can I use you?"

This is one of those places where that split-second translation delay (we were having the whole conversation in French) probably saved me from getting an assault charge. I just cannot tell you how insulted I was by her straying from the task at hand and turning a feedback session into an occasion to annihilate me. I was absolutely "bouche-bé" as the French say (like mouth hanging open in surprise) and Miss Lead Teacher tried to intervene a bit and make Miss Senegal understand my good intentions & divert the conversation & here came the 2nd part of the 1-2 punch when Mr Frenchman hit me with a few anecdotes of how distracting I am for the kids but at least he had some advice to offer about how to keep calm & get better results out of them.

But it really didn't matter what he said. The blood was all rushing up in my ears and I felt like Miss Senegal had taken every positive feeling I had about the job and pissed all over them. By the time the meeting was over, I couldn't look anyone in the room in the face. Then Miss Senegal went over to the table where she had made a big mess from making fruit smoothies with the kids, so guess who had to grab the bowls & the blender carafes & took them & washed them in the sink of the girls bathroom?

Miss Lead Teacher could tell I was upset and came into the bathroom and asked if I wanted to come talk to her. I said "Non, on a tout dit" (No, everything was said). It was rude of me, especially when she was reaching out, but I kept my back turned and my eyes down and just looked at the carafe I was rinsing. She asked if I was OK. I just said "Oui." She asked if she would see me Monday, I just shrugged & said "On verra," (We will see.") But just now, as I'm thinking of it, maybe I said "Tu verras" (You will see)...at any rate, I meant the other.

Obviously, I will be back at work Monday. I wish I didn't have to be though. It sucks that I get along (I think) with every other member of the staff there, but these two....ugh.

I can't tell you how angry I still am about the way this whole thing went. Oh well, it is only until December 20th. Mercifully our Fall Break starts a week from yesterday & I can start looking for new job leads.....



PS. Damn the DA's office for not giving me that translator's job.

1 week later...

Still no word from the Council on Day 13 of the adventure that is my job at ISL. Well, actually I talked to Miss Rotarian Lady & she said that she knew the other woman had made a decision, but she didn't know whom she had chosen. 7 days later it seems pretty likely that it wasn't me, as I have left at least 2 voicemails for the other lady & still heard nothing.

Yesterday, I finally thought to ask for a copy of the kids' daily schedule, since no one had given me one. This way, I am not continuously surprised that I am having to take them somewhere. As I mentioned previously, my day is split between 2 classes of 16 3rd graders. I take each group to lunch on alternating days & today I was with the....."interesting" class. All kids are a handful, but this group is even more so. During lunch, one of them threw up in front of the rest of them. Another one was going into Def-con 14 over being excluded from a hand-clapping game, these 2 little boys were just being all rowdy with each other, everythang.

When I had them line up, 2 by 2, I made them take each others' hands, since if I don't, they go from being a line to being  mob in like 3 seconds flat. As we get to the hallway, I was walking along side them & the last two boys were behind me & I heard one of them say, "He's a faggot!"

My blood absolutely ran cold. My hands are shaking as I type this & I remember being 7 years old, in Mrs. Smith's 2nd Grade class at Hahnville Elementary, sitting in my little desk & another kid slapping me so hard on the back of my neck out of nowhere & me bursting into tears & him saying just that one word. Faggot. And no one came. I just buried my face in my little arms & just cried silently for a few minutes until Mrs Smith said, "wake up, Sam" & I just swallowed real hard & wiped my eyes & just kept going.

"Qui a dit ça??!?" (Who said that?)

& the one kid I'll call A. immediately piped up, "I didn't say anything!" Clearly, I know it's him, besides the fact that I know what his voice sounds like. I led them back up to the classroom & to my surprise, there was  a Teachers' meeting going on, so I had to stand in the hallway, shushing the kids for a minute or two while the rest of them went into another classroom & Ulysse started with a Science lesson. I stood around for a minute, looking for some papers to correct or something & went into the hallway to look for Isabel, the other teacher I am assisting. She was still all slung up in her meeting, but she saw me looking in the window of the door & came out & we went into the other class & I told her what happened, looking for advice on discipline & she sucked her teeth in that Senegalese way I have adopted (I have GOT to stop doing this, BTW) & told me some horror stories about being called names by the students & then she said, "I don't find you very professional, so naturally the kids talk to you like you are their equal."

"So it's my fault?"

"No, but if you don't take a firm line with them, they will walk all over you."

Just about then, the kids came back in. She advised me to go outside for a walk, smoke a cigarette & relax b4 coming back in. So I did.

I swear, if I hadn't left my backpack up in the building, I'm pretty sure I'd have been on the Magazine bus in 2 minutes flat. But instead I gathered myself together & headed to the Principal's office. I told her my story.  She identified both my issues & we talked for several minutes. She was incredibly supportive & we even had a hug afterwards. Then we headed downstairs to pull A. out of class. I hung back at 1st, and watched the Master at work. She started off with, "Do you know why I pulled you out of class?" & he was all evasive & when she got to the heart of the matter, he tried to say at first that it was the other little boy. We pulled the other little boy out of class & A. got all nervous & tried to flip the script & they both tried to tell some story that Miss Woman dismissed out of hand. She sent the other little boy back to class & then things got real serious. She explained to him about bad words & derogatory words. She asked if he even knew what the word faggot meant. He said, "It means you don't like someone?"

This is one of those times where I just wanted to burst out laughing but I didn't react (thankfully). Without flinching, Miss Principal Lady never gave him a definition but steered the conversation deftly into how much words hurt and how she was gonna have to tell his parents about the whole thing. He cried a bit, and after some prompting, apologized.

I thanked Miss Principal Lady profusely for having my back like that & after the kids all left, I got up on that bus & headed for the comfort of blogging & soaking my feet in my lil foot bath. Damn I wish I had me some hot boy to rub my feet.


& Damn the DA's office for not calling me back.

LRW faces the Council....

Today was Day 6 of my job as a Teacher's Aide at ISL. While I was on my break, I walked over to Mojo's coffee shop & ran into a fellow hot-mess-turned-success, who owns the coffee shop! We didn't get to talk for very long, but it sure was nice to run into an old friend & know he's doing well despite (or maybe even because) of his former levels of tragedy, not unlike myself.

Anyway, my day at ISL was good, there was not a ton of stuff to do & interacting with the students really is a joy. However, one of the teachers whom I assist always has some menial thing for me to do after the kids are gone, like sharpen & sort a bunch of colored pencils. Today, my last task was to open all of our age-appropriate French-French dictionaries to a specific page (218, if you're wondering) & cover the anatomical drawings from chest to genitals with Post-it notes that I had to tape down, as if this is going to stop a determined 8-year-old from looking.

As most of you will already know, I had a 2nd interview scheduled with the DA's office today at 4:30. Mercifully, my dear friend Steve was able to give me a ride from ISL (this would have been an hour-long multiple-bus excursion otherwise, so I really am grateful for this) to the DA's office. I got to there 15 minutes early, and when I presented myself at the front desk, the Rotarian Lady from the 1st interview greeted me warmly, and had me sit at a conference table in the lobby to translate 3 pages of legal-related sentences from English into Spanish & 1 page in the opposite language combination to work on. When she asked if I had a pen, I said, "Of course," and got started.

She came down & checked on my progress twice & the 2nd time she had me stop & come up to meet with the rest of the interviewers. "How many more interviewers are we talking about here?" I thought, and as I walked up to this conference room, I could see that there were no less than 6 other people seated around this table, with the hot seat waiting for me.

The lady who conducted my 1st interview was seated at the head of the table and on her right was a white lady from the victims & witnesses services & a Hispanic lady & to her left was a Black lady from some other department and another white lady from the Diversion Dept & another Hispanic lady. It felt like the council of LRWs. Miss Woman from the 1st interview says "As I told you in the 1st interview, the 2nd interview will consist of you role-playing with these Spanish ladies & these White ladies with you acting as translator & then you will go downstairs with one of our native speakers to go over your written answers" (Clearly I am paraphrasing a bit) but I am now thinking, "Bitch you didn't tell me anything about this at the 1st interview. I am sure about this because I was hanging on your every word." But I just went with it.

There were words I didn't know, OK. I think I conveyed the better part of the material but there were definitely what felt like pauses to me. There was even a point where one of these White Ladies kinda carried on and I got lost in what she was saying & I had to ask her to repeat it. But I soldiered through it and when it was over, Miss Black Lady said, "well, that went really well."

Now I have to say this. Despite the fact that she said that, if I had left right then I'd have said, "Oh well, you didn't get this one, you will do better & get the next one." The pauses made me nervous & probably hyper-critical, but when I was going downstairs with Miss Native Speaker to go over the written portion, she complimented my Spanish & said in so many words that it was "excelente."

We went over the written answers and talked about a phrase I had translated awkwardly from the Miranda rights and then it was over. She seemed to accept my translations & may have noticed that I corrected the  Spanish statements for grammar, accentuation & punctuation (I am sure any of my students who read this will tell you I am a stickler for these sorts of things). I think I forgot to mention that after the role-playing, Miss Woman from the 1st interview told me I should have a definite answer within 2-3 days.

I walked out into the beautiful, breezy weather & it felt like it used to when I was walking to work at Chateaubriand during those gorgeous, Pre-Katrina purply sunsets that we only get in South Louisiana, back when hope grew every day in my heart all the time along with all those different colored rosebushes I'd planted. I hope that's a good sign.

But if this is not what is in the cards for me at the moment, it is fine. My current job is really a wonderful opportunity to help NOLA youth to grow & learn, even if part of it includes a lil academic bitch-work There are a few LRWs there too, trust!

Thanks for reading!!

LRW at the ISL.

My day started at 5:45AM, when both my alarms started ringing & my coffeepot finished perking. Why so early? Well, in order to arrive at the International School of Louisiana at 7:45, I have to catch the Franklin bus at 6:50, which arrives at Rampart & Canal at 7:11, then I have to grab a Canal Streetcar over to Magazine St, where I catch the 7:32 bus, which drops me off at 1400 Camp St (AKA the ISL) right on time.

Fortunately, all of this NORTA stuff worked out fine & when I got to the school, I walked straight in through one of the doors, along with what seemed like everyone else, and I told the lady at the door that it was my 1st day as an assistant to 3rd grade. She brought me up to a classroom and the day started pretty abruptly.

I spent the majority of my time assisting a male teacher named Ulyssse, although there is another teacher who will be going on maternity leave on Sept 9th, and so after that point, I will be splitting my day in half between the two 3rd grade classes, assisting Ulysse & this other woman's replacement.

I was a bit surprised that there was no orientation or anything like that. In fact I was pretty tied up helping the students (who are all very bright & speak excellent French, btw) and correcting quizzes and that sort of thing. I had my 1st skool lunch in ages. A big part of the job is classroom management AKA keeping bright 8-year-olds in line. They are good kids though, as far as I can tell. Cute and polite, so far.

Their day is rigorously organised, with trips to the library and snacks & a twirl on the playground. I think I like it. There's something nice about being "Monsieur Sam."

I'm not sure if it's forever. I'm reserving judgment about this job until I have some more time in it. It is a long day though. I get out of work at 4:00, & have to take the Magazine bus to Canal, arriving at 4:20 (oh the irony) and from there I have several options. Today I took the Elysian Fields bus & arrived home around 5:30. Tomorrow I will try taking the streetcar to get back to the Franklin bus, which drops me off only 2 blox from home, whereas the EF drops me about 7 blox away. In NOLA heat, 5 blox can make all the difference...

Thanks for reading!!

Anniversary Blog: An LRW FAQ

6 years ago, on this date, I evacuated New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina bore down upon us like the wrath of God. I didn't miss the irony of it. On this very same date in 2002, in Los Angeles, I felt the Hand of God in a pretty big way myself. For those of you who have forgotten, this is the very day that I taped my appearance on the game show, The Weakest Link. (The best part is when they don't know how it ends!!)
Here it is if you haven't seen it!

I often like to show my DVD of the episode to close friends, along with a live commentary, but until we can clear the rights, I will offer you my recollections of the Best Day of My Life. I have noticed people generally have a specific set of questions about my appearance, so here goes:

1. How did you get on the show?
I had been a big fan of the show since the hour-long prime-time version with Anne Robinson. When the show changed format to 30 mins during daytime with George Gray, I was still just as hooked. Every time they ran an ad after the show with a phone line to call in to be a contestant, I was dialing that phone like the very last kid with ADD, & usually all I heard was a busy signal. One fateful summer afternoon the line actually rang. I left a msg basically saying that I was a big fan of the show & that if they ever came to NOLA to cast they should give me a call.

At the time, my outgoing voicemail msg was:
"Hey Hey Hey
It's Sam Ray
& Who Can Say
Where I am Today?
Leave a message & I'll call back right away, OKAY??"

& will never forget it because one day I noticed an LA area code on my caller ID & got this msg:
"Wow Sam, if you are half as much fun as your voice-mail, you are just what we are looking for on The Weakest Link! We will be coming to the Marriott on Canal St in NOLA to hold try-outs, bring your friends and be ready to be there for a few hours!"

I was quivering already.

A few weeks later, I went to the hotel & there were about 100 of us in a big conference room, all seated at long tables. Packets were handed out for us to fill in, with questions about our hobbies & interests. Well, for the last several years, my hobbies had mostly been taking drugs, dressing crazy, talking crazy, going to clubs/bars/raves & somehow that just didn't seem appropriate to Weekday TV. So I told them about my obsession with Wonder Woman. How much I had loved her my whole life, and how my favorite power of hers is not the Magic Lasso (although a bondage toy that makes ppl tell the truth would surely come in handy) nor her super-strength but rather the fact that a quick spin was all she needed to have a whole new outfit, with accessories!!

Each one of our seats had a number in front of it, and we all had to introduce ourselves to the group and then we took a written, 20 question test. After a short break, the associate producers came back and read out the list of ppl who'd passed the written test & were moving on to a taped mock game for the producers to review.

After we finished with that, they sent us on our way, and by the following week, I had a voicemail that said:

"Pack your bags, Sam, you're coming to Hollywood! NBC has booked you on a round-trip flight to L.A. plus 2 nights at the Hilton Universal. The only money you need to bring is enough for meals and entertainment."

& That's how I got on the show.

2. How did you get around in LA?

NBC sent a limo-bus to pick me up from the airport. I had to find a driver with a sign with my name on it like you see in the movies. The next day, a limo picked myself and all of the other potential contestants from my show as well as potential contestants for a fireman-themed show, at about 7AM.

3. How long were you with the other contestants before you started taping?
We arrived at NBC studios around 7:15, where those of us from the hotel met up with 2 other potential  contestants. We spent most of the day, waiting for the producers to arrive so we could meet with them in person. We knew that they were only going to use 6 contestants, so 2 people wouldn't make it through to the taping. We passed the time, chatting and eating pastries and drinking sodas, always supervised by Contestant Coordinators. Right until I went in to see the producers, I had those Wonder Woman bracelets in my pocket. I wasn't sure whether to wear them or not. I had consulted with this guy Victor that I knew about it, and he said "Grrl if you wear those things, you will be voted off in the 1st round."

His words echoed in my ears when I heard it was time to go in to see the producers. I said to myself, "No Guts, No Glory" & snapped those babies around my wrists. It's Showtime, Synergy. (OK that's Jem, not WW but it works for me)

We began taping around 3PM & it lasted about 1.5 hours.

3.I noticed you got rid of Hap in the 1st round, although he was the strongest player, Why?

Bottom line: He wasn't really nice during the pre-show. He was smug (if not mean-spirited) about the fact that he had previously been on Jeopardy, where he was runner-up, and he clearly felt that The Weakest Link was a big step down from Alex Trebek's stage. One of the lights actually went out during his "walk of shame" so he had to do it TWICE! I was thinking "Suffer, bitch!!!"

4. How could you miss the question about Cartman? You watched South Park for years, you went to see the movie, hell you even owned the movie?

I have no idea.

5. After Dr Ingrid changed her vote to keep you on the show, you voted her off, you are SCANDALOUS! What gives?

Well, I was originally going to vote off Marcy, but it was like a blessed wind from Paradise Island blew through that studio & ruffled that little curl on my forehead and I almost heard a voice that said "Look Over." So I glance over to my right, and I saw Dr Ingrid writing an "S" curve and I said to myself: "Bye Bye Dr Ingrid, I am gonna take my chances with the Hooters Waitress." If you pause the video when I announce my vote, you can see that I began to write an M, but scratched it out.

A word about Dr Ingrid: She was one of the most kind people I've ever met. After the taping, she said to me: "Sam, I just got out of Med Skool, I have a quarter million dollars in Financial Aid debt, 30K is a drop in my bucket. But it's a life-changing amount of money for you, and I'm honestly glad you have it." Then she even took me out for dinner & drinks & palmed me a few bucks for cover charges and cocktails.

6. What was the host really like?
I don't know, but he was relentlessly Letting Me Have It about the bracelets. Most of it got edited out but that's the biz I guess.

7. Did you ever get a car like you said in your closing remarks?
No. Actually they asked a few different questions and did 3 takes at that point and I ended all of them the same way, with the Amazon salute & the phrase "Justice HAS prevailed!!" but the first couple times I think I hit my mike, so that was the only usable take. That is my only regret about the whole thing, that I messed up the previous takes & they had to use that one.

8. What happened right after?

Well, I had to pee like CRAZY & I was sent out of the door by the booth where we gave the comments to NBC's public lobby restroom, i.e. the same restroom all these audience were using on their way out of the building. It was the Weirdest thing. People parted for me. Strangers calling out my name. "Way to go, Sam!!" "You're awesome!!" "Love the Bracelets!!" "Make way for the champ!" The line of men in the restroom let me go ahead of them. Afterwards, I went back upstairs, filled out some tax paperwork & gave Marcy the Wonder Woman lapel pin I was wearing in my collar as our limo bus dropped her off in the parking lot & the rest of us contestants headed back to the hotel.

9.How much tax did you have to pay on it?

When I finally got the check, 6 months later, as stipulated by the contract, California had withheld about $1500 in State Tax (most of which I got back later) & I pre-paid 20% of it off the top to the IRS.

10.What did you do with it all?

I cleared up some outstanding debts to Entergy & Cox Cable (the final legacy of my snaggle puss tranny roommate, Summer Teef), and paid my rent for a year. Since I had already started at school, I repaid my boyfriend for the tuition he'd paid & the books he'd bought & then paid for a few more semesters of school and books.

11. How did it feel?

It felt better than any drug I could imagine. It felt like sunshine in my belly. It felt like I was finally getting what I had always wanted, ever since the 1st time I saw The Price is Right or Tic Tac Dough or any number of other game shows. It felt like someone was telling me "Yes you can, Sam. You can wear the bracelets, you can be yourself, and you WILL be rewarded for it."


3 years later, 6 years ago, I left NOLA, sure that I would be back in just a few days. I stayed away a lot longer than that, but that, Gentle Readers, is a story for another time.

9 years later, I am at another crossroads: I begin a job tomorrow as a 3rd grade teacher's assistant at the International School of New Orleans on Camp Street. I also recently interviewed for a position as a Spanish Language Interpreter for the DA's office. I am waiting to hear back from them to discover if I will get a second interview. I may not wear the bracelets but dammit in some ways, I never took them off....

Praise Bless!

Back to Bimbo TV....

This is the first time since 2002 that I haven't been heading back to skool. It's kinda surreal. My friends are having Financial Aide Crises, Parking Decal Drama & Snarky Student Worker Re-runs. Like most of us born under the sign of Gemini, I am of two minds about this. While on the one hand I don't envy them the stress and its myriad of physical & emotional side FX but by the same token I miss having a place to go every day, people to see, projects to accomplish. Not just a bunch of hours punctuated by pilates twice a week but otherwise spent electronically numbing my overeducated brain with the most banal bunch of queens you can ever hope for:

YES I mean The A-List: New York!!! Not to mention RuPaul's Drag U, Hell's Kitchen & (BEST OF ALL) the new season of Hair Battle Spectacular!
And that's just Monday.

I guess if you like TV this is not a bad time to be unemployed, there are lots of great shows happening right now. Besides my only soap, Bold & the Beautician, I really am spoiled for choice, thanks to my DirecTV DVR. Tuesdays I think used to be Hawthorne, Wednesday is Damages & Rake exclusively on AUD network on DirecTV. I'm not sure about Thursday offhand but Friday is Torchwood & (OMG) the 2nd half of Dr Who's 2011 season starts this Saturday!

In other LRW news, I have a job interview tomorrow at the International School of Louisiana tomorrow at 9:30AM. Gettin up early enough for this is gonna be a task, I'd better let Drag U stay on my DVR tomorrow as an after-pilates treat. I go back to work at Tulane Med Skool on Thursday. It is not super trills but at least it is enough to keep my screens (TV, Phone, Computer) running!

Trifling Tuesday....

This past Tuesday, as you may recall from my Facebook update, I had an interview for a Spanish teaching position at Cameron College here in New Orleans, which is located on Canal Street in Mid-City, near Broad St, directly across from the McDonald's. I also saw an ad on NOLA.com seeking a Spanish language translator for the DA's office, which is about 7 blocks from Cameron College. A friend came by & I got him to bring me over to the DA's office & then drop me off at Cameron College a few minutes before my 4PM appointment.

I had Googled Cameron College prior to showing up & I had seen the building many times before, so I knew it wasn't going to be like  Harvard. From what I recall from their website, it is a community college that specializes in Associate degrees in subjects like Medical Billing. I didn't even know they taught Spanish at this sort of school. But I digress. As far as I could tell, the campus is this one 3-story brick building on Canal St. When you enter on the ground floor, there is a lobby with a lunchroom on the right and an elevator on the left. I had to go up to the 2nd floor, which I guess is where administration is. Immediately when I walked in I noticed that the secretary had a flat-screen monitor displaying 14 security cam views of the "campus." Always reassuring.

I had previously emailed them a resumé in response to a Craig's list ad, but I had brought a hard copy with me, and when I told the secretary why I was there and who I was there to see, she asked me to have a seat and fill out an application that had been Xeroxed so many times that some of the boxes were blurred out. This annoys the hell out of me. Like, I wrote a resumé, don't make me fill out some generic application that asks for my elementary school. But so I did it, and I was made to wait around for nearly an hour until Mrs Cameron called me into her office for an interview. She seemed a charming older lady, but she had clearly only scanned my resumé. The big question I remember her asking is "Why do people get a Master of Arts degree? Does that mean you are an artist?" After I explained this conundrum to her, she said "oh, look! you've taught me something!" Very pleasant.

Afterwards, she had me go to the Dean's office, where I was interviewed by a White man and a Nepalese woman, who asked questions like "How do you approach a class of people who don't want to take Spanish? Or who want to know WHY you have to take it?" Grrl. That has been practically every class I have taught.
They also explained to me how things work. Their programs last 6 to 12 weeks, and Spanish is taught in the morning for 1 hour for the 12-wk class & 2 hours for the 6 wk class with a pay rate of $18/hr. I took this in and kept interviewing. I think the rest of it went well, but as I was thinking about it on the bus it is just not enough damn money. $90-180 per week before taxes for a bitch with 2 Bachelor's Degrees and a Master's degree.

The big plus for this adventure was hearing the bounce remix of Adele's "Rolling in the deep" BOOMING out of someone's car while I was waiting for the Broad bus at the corner of Canal & Broad. It was a struggle not to booty wap at the intersection, but given that I was dressed in a button up shirt & khaki trousers (and it was like 100+ heat index), I thought it was best to save the shaking for later.

Anyway so I got home, changed into my Pilates wear & got on the Elysian Fields bus to head over to my pilates class on St Claude. I got off the bus at St Claude & Elysian Fields, and went into the Walgreens at the corner for an Arizona Blueberry White Iced Tea and a little pack of peanuts. So I was standing around on the sidewalk on St Claude, eating my peanuts & drinking my tea while listening to something ignorant like MIA on my earbuds, wearing some plastic glam sunglasses & not my regular spectacles when I heard a car horn blow. I looked up & saw this black man in a white car, kinda waving. As you know, I am quite nearsighted & naturally I didn't recognize this man, but I waved (it's only polite) and finished off my tea & peanuts & went to cross Elysian Fields when I noticed this man in the car had turned left onto EF & was coming kinda in my direction.

Naturally I got like 3 txt messages as I crossed the street & I stopped at the far side of the corner to answer them (by this time I have my glasses on) and the light changes & this man blows his horn again & pulls over into the parking lot of this abandoned building I am standing in front of, waving me over. I am still kind of thinking maybe I know this man from UNO or something but as I approach his car, I realize that I don't know him. So I walk up and I'm like "Do you need something? Have we met?"

This man looks me dead in my face & he's like "I wanna hook up wit u, why don't you get in the car & I'll give you a ride to wherever it is you are goin & I can get your number."

"Man, I am not getting in that car. What is it you think we would be doing anyway"

"Turn around"

"Oh no baby. It is not that kinda party"

"Wait. Have you ever gotten a bj?"

"Huh?"

"C'mon, show me how big it is, just pull down them sweat pants & lemme see it"

"You are insane. I am trying to go the exercise place, not get arrested for prostitution"

"Where you stay?"

"Gentilly"

"I'm in Slidell these days. I been out inna Quarters, drinking. I was at Rawhide just now, but it's too early"

(PS The sun is still out!! Of course it is too early for the Rawhide)

Then this man says "C'mon, let me give you a ride, Imma run outta gas in this parking lot like this."

"I'm not getting in that car with you, man"

"That's what's up" and then he finally drove away.

I normally do not smoke cigarettes for at least half an hour prior to pilates but this was a special occasion. As I was walking to class I just kept thinking, "Really?!?"

I don't think I'd be so insulted if this man wasn't so absurd looking, and honestly if he had been fine enough, pilates might have been cancelled. But this dude looked like a black Jabba the Hut. I am not saying I don't have love for a big boy sometimes but this man was just ridiculous. I am kinda insulted about the whole thing. I am so far out of this man's league on the simple fact of looks (never mind education & class) that I am still baffled as to how he really thought this whole situation was gonna go. Ugh.

Well, at least I had a funny story to tell my pilates teacher.

& you!! Thanks for reading....

LRW explained for You

I am sure plenty of you have noticed my use of this "LRW" acronym and it occurs to me that you may not know the genesis of the phrase. It goes all the way back to 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11. You may recall that in those early months, there were a lot of American-Flag inspired decorations all over the place. There was a park near my home & there were red white & blue bow ribbons on the trees. You may also recall my being an avid Wonder Woman Fan & at the time, I was going to a lot of raves & I had a Club-Kid aesthetic about how I dressed at these kinds of events. So I saw these bow ribbons up on these trees & I devised this rather elaborate plan of sneaking into the park late at night & snatching one of these bow ribbons so I could attach it to my Wonder Woman Visor or otherwise incorporate it into some Patriotic Party Wear. I was on the phone with a friend & when I told him of my plan, his response was: "Grrl you are not normal. What do you mean, Patriotic Party Wear?? Talking to you is like talking to a Large, Retarded Woman!!"

Stunned Silence until I respond "Why I gotta be Large? Why you gotta say it like that??"

Hysterical laughter ensued and the name stuck. With time I have come to realize that all 3 of these words apply not just to me but also to many of my nearest and dearest, regardless of size, IQ or gender identity. Like it is possible to be 5'2 & 100 lbs & still be Large as in Larger than Life, or get Fulbright Scholarships & still have a bunch of children by several abusive men or be biologically all man & still love ABBA.

Ultimately LRWs are the ones who get stuff done cuz other hoes just don't have the creativity within them to change things. Sometimes we are the ones who get all emotional in the grocery store while singing along to Rihanna in our earbuds...

Praise Bless & I welcome any and all examples of LRW in yourselves or daily lives!

Saying Goodbye...

....or, Crazy Hoes I have known, the saga continues.

During this period of flux that I am currently inhabiting, there have been a few voices from my past that I have entertained. You will all surely remember my previous blog about Lil J, the cute guy with the drinking problem, (whose number is now saved in my cellulary phone as DO NOT ANSWER) so let me hit you with a story about someone else whose number has joined that list, a biracial gal I'll call Mo Gumbo.

I first met Mo Gumbo on Grand Route St. John, during the early part of 2001, a period when I was spending a lot of time with my neighbor, the Lady Ella, a beautiful Creole lady who worked at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter. I was dropping by Ella's patio on my way home after a trip to Terranova's grocery store, and had a loaf of Bunny Bread hanging out of my grocery bag. Ella introduced me to Mo Gumbo, a heavy-set bright skinned lady with long dreadlocks & abnormally huge breasts whose instant reaction was to say something along the lines of "It's nice to meet you, you seem too smart to be eating bad bread like that."

"Grrl I don't know who you think you are to be critiquing a hoe's bread, but until you are paying for it, I would suggest you step off!"

We had a good laugh about this, I suppose, and we became friends. I remember the next time I saw her, she showed up to where I was living with my ginger tranny roommate, Summer Teef, all upset. Her boyfriend was breaking up with her & she just really needed to smoke some weed. She was so upset that he just KNEW how bad she needed to smoke, and he was smoking all up in her face. I was still not understanding why she was showing up to my house when I didn't have any weed, but eventually she told Tranzilla & me that she wanted us to come over and help her pack her ex's stuff. Please remember this is at a time when I didn't have cable, and this little drama had a lot of appeal.

We went over to her place, and helped her put some stuff in bags, and she kept asking if we wanted stuff of his, like shoes or fishing tackle or I don't even know what. I know neither of us wanted any of this foolish man's stuff. Or maybe he wasn't such a fool, as he wasn't dealing with her mania. Anyway, so at one point, she's so irate about the way the break up went that this crazy lady takes this man's tackle box, hikes up her hippy chick skirt & pees in it!!

I have to admit, this was HILARIOUS. Wacky, yes, but the intrinsic comedy of it all was pretty undeniable.

As time went on, we got closer, I think. There was even a point when she told Tranzilla & I that we were like her brothers--or sisters, she just couldn't decide. Later on I was to discover that she has a tendency to call the people in her life she's not having sex with by some familial name--brother, father, sister--until she does end up having some kind of sexual contact with them. But I'll get back to that later. There was something I liked about her. Not just that she was well-educated & very well spoken (she had grown up in Washington State, and so her accent alone made her exotic) but she was also quite good at actualizing. Like she just set goals and achieved them, unlike myself (and most of my coterie of friends) who was really good at thinking up cool ideas but not knowing how to go about making them happen. She was a survivor--she had been thru a bout with cancer and had lost her mother to the Big C & her father to AIDS. She had bonded closely with my neighbor Ella, who had lost one of her breasts because of Cancer. Despite all of this, she had a book deal. She had diplomas from universities. She attained jobs with ease.

But in her personal life---WHOA. Big troubles. Insecurity and narcissism led to bad decisions with men. She was the kind of gal to pick up dudes in bars & then wonder why they didn't call back. Yes. One of those kinds of gals. So she was seeing this white guy & turned up pregnant & the guy's family flipped out in some racist rage. Of course, when the baby came out blond & blue-eyed, the family was ok with the baby but she couldn't let go of her rage against them. But anyway she was an on-the-road kinda gal. She bounced from New Orleans to Washington State & back a few times and eventually lands up in Houston, dating a "great guy--and he's black!!" however, this relationship didn't work out because Mr Black Man was in the armed forces and had a pretty severe case of PTSD that manifested in alcoholism due to several tours of duty in Iraq & Afghanistan. oh & he was married with four kids anyway. Did I mention that she had a son by this man?

During this time, she was steadily losing weight; she got her breasts reduced & became a marathon runner. Our friendship is carried out mostly over the internet or phone:
"I'm not sure if I should keep this baby or have it adopted"
"I'm going to have it adopted"
"I changed my mind."
These little postcards from the edge are continuously entertaining. But I also have to remember that these calls for advice were also usually punctuated with offers to fly me to Seattle or Houston or wherever she was at that week to see her that never came to pass. There were promises of birthday presents, graduation presents, that were also not kept. There was some gift exchange though, over the years--I remember a hello kitty compact and some cookies from her & I sent some scarves, hats & headbands. I liked this girl. I thought she did crazy things but I really liked her & looked forward to hearing from her, even though the calls were often troubling, I did my best to always tell her the objective truth about things, and she always said that's what she valued most about our friendship.

So what, you may be asking, could have made me decide to be done with this woman?

Last summer, with the white man keeping her daughter, and the black man out of the picture (re-deployed maybe? I know there was some drama with his wife but it's all behind her now), she decides that she's going to spend the summer taking a road trip with her son, taking photographs & blogging throughout about the people she meets. I read the blog avidly, seeing photographs of poor people everywhere she goes. Like, did you intentionally seek out shelters? But anyway the blog stalls out in Missoula, Montana.

I get a phone call : "Do you think I should take over running this bar for a woman with cancer?"
"No grrl. One more or less bar in Missoula is not as important as following through with your plan."
"But I met a guy here & I really like him too!"
Here we go again. The guy is named Sam (how Freudian!!) but he is about to go study in Guatemala. She snags some job in record-keeping for the local city hall and enrolls in school there and gets her kids into the local day care. Sam takes off on her but there's a handy man who comes in really handy when she has a health scare and has to have a procedure that requires 4 or 5 days of recovery time. Without ever dating, she starts playing house with the handy man, who is in the middle of losing his job for a dirty drug test, but his cover story is that he just wants a break from the rat race. But she lets this man (and his teenage daughter) stay with her until one night once too often, he has some freak out & breaks her car windshield, again. He threw her on the bed & called her the N-word in front of her son. So she has had it with him.

But guess who is pregnant again??? And guess who gets a call?:
"Sam I need your help"
"Ok, what can I do from New Orleans?"
"Well, I need you to call this guy up, since I can't contact him without my lawyer because of the restraining order, and tell him I'm going to have an abortion, and I will leave his stuff at the lawyer's office."
"WHAT?"
"I need closure."
"But didn't you say earlier that you have an appointment to meet with the lawyer tomorrow at 4PM?"
"Well, yeah, but I can't wait that long"
"Why don't you just GO to the lawyer's office at 3 & drop his stuff off & tell your lawyer to tell him all of this madness??"
"Because I need this now!"
"Grrl. Look. You have been dealing with this man since, what, August? I think you can wait another 14 hours for closu---"
CLICK.

Yes. This chick hung up on me mid-sentence.

I reflected for a minute. Should I call back? Was the drama worth it? I think if any other ho hung up in my face like that, I'd be blowing their phone up in a hot second. But this? Not worth it. I just didn't feel like it any more.

Yesterday I got a text from an unsaved number that simply said: "This is my new number. Mo Gumbo"

I was flabbergasted, to tell the truth. After consulting with my baby Sis, Diana about how to proceed, I sent this text:
"Until you are ready to apologize to me for not taking part in your latest exercise in co-dependence, I don't think we need to be communicating"

I shared this with my so-called wife & she was like, "Well bitch, maybe it is time to say goodbye to this ho & goodbye to being the person you were when you knew her"

& I've never heard a truer word spoken.

So that's why Mo Gumbo's number is now also saved as "Do Not Answer"

It's not just goodbye Mo Gumbo. It's goodbye to taking on problems that are not mine. Goodbye to unnecessary drama and foolishness. Goodbye perpetuating a  pattern of behavior that may have once worked but is by now just flat out tired, not to mention exhausting.

I feel like cleansing myself of this stuff is a good way to make room for the blessings that are to come.

Praise be.

Gratitude, not Attitude

So since my previous blog post (and even before, if I'm being honest) I have been so blessed during these troubled times. So to combat the self-pity and doomed feelings I was having earlier, I have decided to follow Oprah's advice & write a gratitude list. This list is not in any particular order and by no means complete. Like many people, I am sure I have blessings I don't even realize.

1. My food stamp case got re-instated on Friday!!
2. My dear friend Tara not only brought me some groceries when my stamps were de-activated but also gave me a guest-star bartending shift last Friday night at Galvez Restaurant.
3. My friend Staci not only treated me to pizza & good company, she also took care of my cell phone bill.
3. Giselle, my 1st Gally buddy & LRW extraordinaire not only paid the past due portion of my Entergy bill but also came by Sunday with her 2-year old & gave me a ride to "make groceries." We were 2 Large Retarded Women & a baby & Rouse's may never be the same!!!
4. After some discussion & prayer, my parents are sending a rent check to my landlady (I am currently about a week late on the rent, so this really does a lot for my state of mind)
5. Mad Martha has taken me out for meals & coffee & Escrabble, and sent job leads my way that I may not have ever considered without her.
6. My dear friend Robin is letting me take pilates class twice a week, thus providing some structure to my time. I can't say I've had some stunning weight loss results but I am showing progress. It really does me good to have at least 2 hours a week where I can get out of my head & get into my body, if that makes sense.
7. The Amazing Elisha still knows how to put everything into perspective when I need that other LRW POV on what's happening.
8. Sandi is always there for me to talk to. To tell the things that are too crazy or scary or real to blog about or tell anyone who hasn't known me for 20+ years.
9. Kris did a volunteer bartending shift with me Friday at Satchmo Strut after my twirl at Galvez and not only did we have fun doing that, she took me out to La Peniche afterwards & the conversation didn't stop til almost 5AM. I swear, if she wasn't black & 12 years younger than I am, I would think we were separated at birth.
10. Ashley, a friend & former student, took me out Saturday for dinner, drinks & an eye-opening conversation.
11. My sisters, Sara & Diana, are always there & somehow have just the right things to say. They both remind me that despite my latest setbacks, I am not a failure, just another smart, funny person struggling with dumb, tragic circumstances.

All of this and so much more gives me the strength to keep plugging away. I am humbled by this outpouring of kindness and looking forward to the day when I can not just pay it back, but pay it forward as well.

Thank you to everyone I've mentioned & anyone I've forgotten!

& Thank you for reading!!

Because YOU demanded it!

Well, at least one of you asked for it. I was with a friend last night who commented, "It's been a long time since you posted a blog," to which I replied: "Well, there is not a lot to say & I don't wanna spew my self-pity all over the internet."
The more I think about it, why not update everyone? It can't hurt and maybe it could help. I haven't been posting lately because I haven't thought anyone would want to know my bad news but then again, my readers are mostly (I hope) friends who love and care for me so here goes.

I am doing really badly. I have been desperately seeking employment since June with very little response. I have registered with Temp Services, a tutoring agency, advertised as a tutor on Craig's List, and even pulled together a waiter resumé and send several of them out to many local restaurants. So far I had one interview at a restaurant that I thought went well but didn't result in my getting hired.  My food stamp case got closed on June 30th because I didn't make sure that UNO sent the FS office verification that I am not working there any more. Once I found that out by calling to check my balance on the day I was supposed to get more stamps (July 14) on my LA Purchase card (naturally I was not notified of this), I began emailing my caseworker to find out what I needed to do to get my case re-opened. After several emails & voicemail messages, he finally contacted me & told me what I needed to do, I contacted UNO's HR dept to get the information (which took several days, naturally) so I could forward it to my caseworker. A few days after I did this, I was still frantically checking my FS balance via phone & still hearing that it is ZERO. Several more voicemails & emails to my caseworker later, I got an email on July 25 that stated :

 I did receive the information from UNO about your employment ending. However, when I attempted to complete your SNAP case, the check stubs provided were not efficient (seriously??) enough to justify you (I think he means "your") statements. You stated you rent is $500 a month, and that you pay utilities, but your check stubs do not show an efficient (this person is employed & I am not, are you kidding me?) amount of money to care for all of your expenses. If you have any other source of income, please provide a statement explaining where the income is coming from. If not, I need to know how you manage this expenses. You have until 7/29/2011 to submit this information before your case will be closed completely without a chance of reopening immediately, and you will have to re-apply. If you have more current check stubs that show enough income to care for expenses, you may submit those.


I contacted my caseworker and explained that when I was receiving Financial Aid, I paid my rent several months in advance (AKA thru August 1) and used my regular income to handle my monthly bills. Naturally I received no response until July 29, when he called, all apologetic, and told me that he was forwarding my case to the reinstatement dept, and that I should have more stamps on that day (Friday) or Monday at the latest. So when I still had a Zero balance on my acct Monday I called the FS help line, where (after 20 plus minutes of hold time on Daytime minutes) some lady answered the phone and when I told her my situation, she told me that it takes 30 BUSINESS days for food stamps to get re-instated. I think I burst into tears at this point and got off the phone.

2 weeks ago or so I applied for Unemployment Benefits (something I haven't done since Hurricane Katrina) and received two letters. The 1st stated that I was ineligible and the second stated that I was eligible for $109 per week. The deal with unemployment is that every Sunday you have to either phone in or log in online and file a weekly claim. Well, guess who has filed every week and still received ZERO? Right 1st time! I called these people Friday and after 28 minutes of daytime minutes on hold, some woman with a thick foreign accent (I really wonder if they are outsourcing) got on the phone and after verifying everything besides my eye color & genetic code, she placed me once again on hold for an additional several minutes, only to get back on the phone and tell me that my case will have to be reviewed because they are not sure I have worked long enough to be eligible for this grandiose sum of $109/week. As I was reviewing their info, I realized that they only have records of me working for the last 3 quarters. This is when it hit me that UNO never took federal taxes or anything out of my stipend when I was teaching and that because Tulane dragged their feet about paying me, they only have record of me working and paying into the system since last October. UGH. Miss Woman also told me that she has no possible way of knowing how long it will take the Review department (or whoever) to check my information, as there are any number of applicants ahead of me in line for review, but that I should keep filing my weekly claims in case they decide to approve me.

This is really absurd to me. This kind of thing is just a question of somebody POINTING & CLICKING. People transfer MILLIONS at the stroke of a few keys and somehow I can't get this measly $109/week? I'm fairly certain this exchange got pretty tearful as well. Then Miss Woman put me on hold for several more daytime minutes and then got back on the line and said, all chipper like "Is there anything else I can help you with?" Like she had helped in the first place. I managed to choke out "No thanks" and got off the phone before my hunger and anger vented on a call that was possible being recorded.

I don't know if this is coming out clearly or not but I don't want the food stamps. I don't want the Unemployment Benefits. What I want is a job in my field and not to be just another over-educated, unemployed, almost 40 year old living off the government. I have deliberately kept my expenses minimal: No credit cards, no car, my bills solely consist of rent, utilities, phone, internet & TV and I still can't make ends meet. My moods swing from grateful beyond reason to those who have done their damnedest to help and resentful beyond belief and those who are taking extravagant vacations while I try to work up the nerve to ask my parents for financial help. There are some days when I can't even find the motivation to get up off the couch or bathe or do much more than nibble on the last little drops of hummus in the fridge. I stopped working on my Dalida biography translation project, because I am at the point in the story where she first attempts suicide & that is too dark of a place for me to let my mind go.

I am doing my best to stay in a place of gratitude and realize that I really am blessed. People have it worse than me. Some people are suffering in this heat with no roof over their heads and no place to cool off and no friends to bolster their spirits and bring them groceries or take them out for dinner & Escrabble. I try to keep reminding myself that I am doing the right things. Sending out resumes, making contacts, but in the back of it all the ugly fact is that I am down to single digits in the bank and as far as I can tell there are no food pantries in walking distance (I have called all the places listed on the 2nd harvest website, and only 2 have responded, both to say that they are not, in fact, food pantries, but they provide snacks from 2nd Harvest to their nursery school students and/or parishioners.)

Anyway. Sorry this is not the usual, upbeat, funny blog you have all come to love & expect. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you for keeping me in your thoughts & prayers.

Another crazy LRW weekend!

Friday night, my so-called wife took me to see Sade at the New Orleans Arena. She spoiled me rotten (as usual) with awesome seats on the floor for a show I can only describe as mind-blowing. Sade has hardly aged at all and still sounds absolutely amazing. To be sure, her voice has matured to some degree but she still hits every note and has such magnificent control over her voice that it is truly not to be believed. In this day and age of expensive shows by cheap artists, Sade is a marvel. The show itself was beautifully lit and produced but never overwhelmed the artist's presence onstage. The minimalist stage set & superb use of visual FX like scrims & back projected images were simply entrancing without being obtrusive.

The concert was a welcome distraction from my current situation which is: still seeking work and rapidly coming to the end of my savings as the bills keep coming in.

Another welcome distraction came earlier this evening in the form of a phone call from my dear friend & ex-classmate, Mad Martha. Just as I was about to put a frozen pizza in the oven she called with an invitation to dinner with a little Escrabble (Spanish Scrabble) afterwards. We went over to Juicy Lucy's on N. Carrollton, where we enjoyed cheese stuffed burgers (mine had bacon too--YUM).

We went over to Z'otz Coffeeshop on Oak St, and we were playing at one of the tables on the sidewalk outside, talking crazy when I heard a crash from behind me and as I turned around to look, I saw this big red dooly (sp?) truck swerving straight towards us, out of control, with its rear end lifting up off the street. Mercifully there was a car parked in between it & us and the truck hit the car in front of us & then drove off. Plenty of people (including the girl who was working at the coffee shop) ran behind the fleeing truck, calling for people to take down the license plate number. Within a couple of minutes, we saw the truck come around the corner and then keep driving. All this time there are loads of people milling around, talking about what had just happened. This truck had hit not one but two parked cars. The owner of the first car (i.e. not the one that blocked us from certain death) came down from a bar a block away to give someone the license plate number of the truck when she realized that her car was one of the ones that had been hit.
She called 911 and gave the police all the info she had & right after she got off the phone, the truck's driver came up, wanting to give her his information. This guy was talking crazy and was clearly high or drunk but gave her his driver's license and address and everything & even left a note on the other car he'd hit but then he took off. Everyone was telling him he needed to stay there until the police came or face Hit & Run charges but he wasn't hearing it. When someone pointed out how much damage he had done, he just sort of shook his head and chuckled. Then he proceeded to walk off. Short of actually tying him up, there was no way to keep him there (plus I don't think anyone wanted to fight with some drunk) so he just carried on.
About an hour later we managed to wave down a passing policeman and tell him the situation, and he took the info that Miss Woman had and took off & a bit later an officer showed up in response to the 911 call to take everyone's statements. He gave all of us witnesses report forms to fill out and we did that.
Mad Martha & I continued our game of Escrabble, but as the adrenaline wore off we started to really think about how much worse it could have been. We were both pretty paralyzed with shock when that truck was hurtling towards us and I'm not sure we could have gotten out of the way in time. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I have some kind of PTSD from this or anything but DAMN that was a close one.

This little incident makes me want to work harder at being grateful for my blessings and not focus so hard on my shortcomings, because it all could have been taken away in an instant with no warning , or even any active participation on my part.

So thank you, first and foremost to Elisha & Mad Martha but also to all of my friends, family & just plain folks who think kindly of me from time to time!

Tot Mom: The Movie Casting

So in this media induced feeding frenzy, there has been a lot of talk about books that Casey Anthony might write or TV movies or what have you. My friend Matty & I came up with our dream cast for a Tot Mom film:

Casey Anthony--Jennifer Love Hewitt in her latest comeback. Jose Baez, defense attorney--Marc Anthony
Cheney Mason, his co-counsel--Malcolm McDowell
Caylee Anthony--Suri Cruise in her debut role.
George Anthony--an aged-up Sean Penn or Philip Seymour Hoffman out of makeup & in a grey wig.
Cindy Anthony--Allison Janney, I'm already feeling an Oscar buzz here.
Lee Anthony--James Franco
Judge Belvin Perry--Robert Guillaume. Yes, Benson.
Prosecutor Jeff Ashton--Josh Taylor AKA Roman Brady on Days of Our Lives.
Asst. Prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick--Camryn Manheim
Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, the imaginary nanny--Rosie Perez
Amy Huizenga, Casey's friend whose checks she stole--Drew Barrymore
Dr Jan Garavaglia, Medical Examiner--Herself

With a cameo appearance by Jack Black as the guy who shot the bird at Jeff Ashton from the courtroom audience and got 6 days in jail & about $700 in fines for it.

And RuPaul as the Bailiff!!

Of course, no film about tot mom can ignore the media aspect so we've decided on Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, & Lisa Lisa to play HLN talking heads Nancy Grace, Jean Casarez & Jane Velez-Mitchell!!

Trial By Twitter

I know it's been a long time since I've written but I have been so wrapped up in the Casey Anthony you wouldn't believe it. Now that my jobs at Tulane & UNO have both ended, I have had lots of free time (when not working on translation and job-seeking) to watch the trial on HLN. And post about it on Facebook. And read other ppl's tweets about it (although I haven't gotten a Twitter acct just yet). And watch videos of it on CNN.com. And read what the Orlando Sentinel's website has to say about it. I even became FB friends with Richelle Carey from HLN just so I could read her posts about the trial while I was working on my translation project.

Casey Anthony was accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
The trial itself lasted just over a month but Casey Anthony has been on trial in the court of public opinion for about 3 years now, mostly thanks to Nancy Grace's continous harping on "Tot Mom". Miss Anthony was just declared not guilty of all the charges except for providing false information to police officers. Needless to say, my cell phone BLEW UP when this news came in. Naturally I was watching HLN's coverage of the verdict at the time. I see that loads of folks on FB are outraged & I'm sure Nancy Grace is having a fit of apoplexy right about now but my DVR has been on pause since the verdict was announced.

Nancy Grace's show gives her an opportunity to do what she couldn't do when she was a prosecutor: present inflammatory, skewed information to an apathetic public, whom she whips into a frenzy via the repetition of key phrases: "Justice for Caylee" "Tot Mom Went out PARTYING while the baby was missing" "Caylee's body was wrapped up like trash" "Caylee's body was found only 15 houses from the Anthony home!!" "The baby was tested for Ketamine--a DATE RAPE drug!!!!" Never mind that Caylee was tested for EVERY drug, Nancy Grace has to make it out as if Ketamine was the only thing the baby's body was tested for, and it just HAD to be because the police had evidence of the baby being drugged. The fact was & is that they NEVER had solid evidence of Casey Anthony's guilt, only a strange, sad set of circumstances.

I can't claim not to have been affected by all of this media coverage on the case. Based on HLN's night time lineup--Jane Velez-Mitchell, Nancy Grace, & Dr Drew--there was never any doubt that despite our "innocent until proven guilty" principle, HLN believed this woman was as guilty as hell & never really gave much airtime to the Defense's case, except the most outlandish aspects of it. There was plenty of coverage about searches on Casey Anthony's computer (84 I believe) for "chloroform" that were found by some IT expert. However, the fact that these searches didn't show up until a SECOND scan was done on the computer (which took this expert over 12 hours to make work). If I hadn't watched the entire closing arguments (the only time that HLN didn't incessantly break in with commercials, btw) I might have missed that on the 1st search on Casey's computer, the experts found NO mention of chloroform and 84 accesses to Myspace. Now this makes more sense to me. Once you look up how to make chloroform, why would you need to go back 40 times? It is more reasonable to me to expect someone to use myspace 40 times. Never mind that it is not 100% clear whether it was Casey who was actually using the computer at that time. HLN also never mentioned that the original State's Medical Examiner found no evidence of homicide & ONLY focussed on what celebrity Medical Examiner, Dr G (Jan Garavaglia) had to say about Caylee's remains, which had been gnawed on by animals.

But this is not really the point I was trying to make in the first place. Casey Anthony was arrested & accused of murdering her child because Casey Anthony lies. (She made up this whole elaborate fantasy about her Caylee being with a nanny, not to mention some story about a non-existent boyfriend & his children, and plenty more besides). She also steals (from her own grandfather's retirement home fund! Her best friend, Amy's checkbook!). And she ran around acting like a party girl for the 1st 31 days after her daughter went missing!!

But does the fact that someone behave abhorrently make it OK for us to lynch her? Jane Velez-Mitchell made a great point recently when she mentioned that this is the 1st trial to take place via social media. People receive sensationalistic information and then react on FB, Twitter, etc without knowing the whole story. People hate this Casey Anthony woman because she didn't act like we wanted her to. Never mind that she didn't "act" the way we expect a murderer to act--for example, by leaving town, hiding out, or trying to change her identity. At the end of the day though, the state's case really just boiled down to "Don't you just hate her? She was the last person to be seen with the baby, therefore she must have killed the baby, therefore we should put her to death!!"

I thought Casey Anthony's lawyer, Jose Baez, made a lot of mis-steps during this trial--not the least of which being to accuse Casey's dad of molesting her since age 8 in his opening statement--but his closing arguments were little short of genius. He easily poked holes in the State's flimsy case and pointed out how much reasonable doubt there really is where this case is concerned. Once you go beyond the sound bites and really look at the "evidence," there really isn't very much there.

Post-Birthday blog....

Well, June 2nd came & went & I'm still recovering. That's a sure sign you did something right, btw.

The festivities commenced in the evening of that great Thursday, after work (where my lovely friend Kit got my a delish chocolate B-day cake), my new friend Roy (whom I met at Dr Who Convention in LA this past February) flew in from Cudahy, WI to spend the weekend at my place in NOLA!
I got my gal pal Simone to bring me to the airport to pick him up & after some confusion about which exit to take we grabbed him & headed downtown to El Gato Negro, where the Carrot Juice Margaritas will ROCK YOUR WORLD!! Also joining us were my classmate/student/buddy Mad Martha, my ex-co-worker Bourgie Katherine, my fave lesbian couple/swimmin buddies Kris & Jen & (eventually) my lil sweetheart Daniella. As fate would have it, the back patio was completely empty & we had it all to ourselves. FANTASTIC. The service was stupendous as the staff easily kept up with our increasing need for cocktails on a warm Spring evening. We had the free chips & salsa while we nursed round 1 of Carrot Juice (CJ for short) Ritas & ordered their salsa sampler (delish but not for the faint of stomach. I was really glad for how sweet & refreshing my CJ Rita was when I tasted how hot they were). As people filtered in, more drinks were ordered, I promise. I stuck to the Top Shelf CJ Rita while Bourgie Katherine had some kinda Bourgie Pomegranate Mojito (which I sampled--YUM-O, to quote Rachel Ray). I think Simone also tried the Pineapple Cilantro Rita (also inspiring). And like the Large Retarded Women we are, we tucked into a delectable meal. The menu is not so long as to be imposing but it's just so hard to make a choice when everything is so good! I had the Center Cut Pork Chops Al Cazador while Roy had the Chicken Breast con Mole. For those who have not experienced mole: Stop. Get off the computer & find a quality Mexican establishment & eat the HELL out of it.
Okay, now that you're back at your computer, I can honestly tell you I think I remember Martha & Kris having some kinda nachos & well, did I mention by now we were at round 5 of CJ Ritas? Anyway, my so-called wife popped in with a pressie just before we walked Simone back to her car & retrieved Roy's carry-on bag from her car & put it in Bourgie Katherine's lil red Mustang & then headed to 1135 Decatur (the former Rubyfruit/Whirling Dervish/Crystal/Blue Crystal) for my old friend & fellow Gemini, Cameron's free House Music event. Being that it was a Thursday night & most hoes had to work the next day, pretty much every1 else took off besides Katherine & Roy but we were also joined by my Dear Sistery McBride, aka Steven Lemley. After a few drinks and a few mins on the dance floor with the long-lost Rick Glasgow, the four of us folded ourselves up into that lil convertible Mustang & headed over the Jimani, where one of Miss Bourgie's friend's was also having a b-day. After a few more drinks, Miss Bourgie dropped Roy, Sistery & myself off at my place, where we stayed up chatting til about 4am, when Sistery called a cab & I installed Roy on the couch & hit the bed.
We kept the fun going the next day, when Taheeshi Red AKA Matty Whips popped up and the three of us headed to Elizabeth's in the Marigny for a little lunch. It's more fun for brunch on the weekend, but the bright decor is always pleasant, even if the staff is a little subdued toward the end of the shift. I had the roast-beef po-boy (I ordered it with gravy but they don't have gravy evidently) which was tolerable but not stupendous. Matty had the BLT with pork jowls & Spinach (so more of a JST, but there you have it) & I think Roy had a seafood platter. The bloody mary's were just the right touch but lord when we got out in the sun, we pretty much cancelled our movie plans & opted for a day in the Air Conditioned coolness of my apt with my Wonder Woman DVDs. It didn't take us long to come up with WW drinking games (every spin is a drink & any motif of the show becomes a drink--like when Formicida the Ant Lady makes the ants eat a building you take a drink, etc). We completed our lazy day by ordering pizza & I guess we dozed off around 2ish. Possibly later.

We woke up the next morning with Dalida & WW & headed for The Country Club for some sun & swimming & brunch--oh my! Featuring Kris the Mimosa fiend. We had the bottomless mimosas (til 3PM) along with boudin balls as an appetizer (MMMM. Think of a battered, deep-fried ball of rice dressing with a creole mustard dipping sauce) and I think I had the traditional breakfast while Roy had the Portobello sandwich. Kris had a side of mac & cheese with peas (well maybe 2 of these) and something that escapes me, due to the bottomless mimosas. Then we frolicked in the pool til the sun went down!! We encountered a few other gay men (one of whom was drinking "abandoned" cocktails he found poolside & was aptly named--Hoover) but mostly just splashed around, chatting amongst ourselves. Eventually Jen found her way to the pool & we all hung out for a hot minute before the gals took off. I wonder if they ever made it to their next destination, Nonna Mia? Who can say....

So as Roy & I were settling up at the bar we ran into a former classmate of mine & chatted with him & his ex-roomie for awhile b4 calling for a cab to whisk us back into WW DVD land. I believe this is when we watched Amazon Hot Wax, a WW adventure featuring Lynda Carter as Diana Prince going undercover as a singer named Cathy Meadows, featuring 2 songs from her album "Portrait"--Clearly the drinking game continued...I might also mention that the Internet Fairies blessed us with the mid-season Finale of Dr Who!!

Sunday we cabbed over to The Ruby Slipper on S. Cortez in Mid-City where we had a few Bloody Mary's while waiting for a table. The wait was not excessive, and the rainy weather (& umbrellas outside) made it bearable. Roy had the Crab Cake breakfast while I stuck to the traditional but went a lil carb-crazy by having breakfast potatoes & grits (TO DIE FOR). Afterwards, we strolled over to Angelo Brocato's for a lil authentic taste of NOLA ice cream before proceeding back to my house, where Roy packed his bag & we watched one last episode of WW & bid each other "see you again" & that's really what it feels like. On more than one occasion he told me "Grrl, we are gonna know each other for a long time."

So yes, this was the best birthday yet. Friends, new & old, joy, laughter, Wonder Woman, Dr Who...what more could I ask for?