vacationland

been down in new orleans for a few days, seeing friends, drinking beers, hearing music, getting a disaster tour. how old is too old to move to another city whose economy ain't great, whose environmental future is poorer than other places, whose job opps are slim, whose streets and houses, many of them, are decimated? what if, in spite of that discouraging litany, that city has an energy that is so zesty and resilient it makes you feel like your own hometown is predictable and hypercompetitive and altogether microcosmic?

take the music scene here—go to a bar around the corner, see world class jazz musicians play for free and the audience isn't a bunch of carbon-copied professional types, though that ilk's there too, but a mix ethnically, agewise, moneywise..and everyone smiles at each other and dances with each other and if folks have a cloak of cynicism or self-consciousness, they've left it at home cause anyhow it's too damn hot for extra garments, and life's short and have a second drink and all. sure, a city with probs, maybe more to come if this coming storm season is virulent. but it's a refreshing change from the narcissicism that works like an overheated engine in nyc and makes one (where one is me, anyway) lose perspective.

too heavy on the polly anna?

a 13 yr old i know emailed me. and she is not one for full sentences. and she signed off...with, check it, an emoticon...but it's okay if you're 13.

<3

it's a heart, but you got to turn your head to the right to get it. get it? and it sort of looks to me like a double scoop ice cream. which sounds tasty.