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Today I watched an episode of Dead Like Me (which I just found, and have decided I love), and one of the characters described people as being of two camps: bowling balls and pins. I think, for the most part, I have been a pin in my life. I have “gone with the flow,” or “drifted,” or whatever other cutesy name you want to give it. And, I have to say, everything has generally turned out well. I have a great job, great friends, and am generally pretty happy. Yes, there’s the whole love/partner piece still missing, but I think this will be the case for quite awhile. (Side note: I have realized lately that something is different in me, that something has changed when it comes to men, love, relationships. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. It is kind of like a hole, or that my heart is covered in scar tissue and can’t really feel anything right now, and I’m not really in any hurry to let it feel anything again. So, we will come back to this some other time.) What do I want? I am blessed to be smart and crafty enough to basically have whatever I want in life, so why can’t I decide?
I’ve been thinking that I need a plan, so here are the basics of it. I don’t know where the plan will get me, but it is a start.
Things I want to do:
- Move back to New Orleans.
- Remodel a house in New Orleans (I can see this in my mind, and think about it frequently.)
- Play roller derby.
- Be an artist.
- Be happy.
- Be in better shape.
- Get another degree.
- Save enough money to have a nest egg.
- Pay off my bills.
- Buy a new-to-me Jeep.
- Find a way to do my job from Louisiana, or find an equally satisfying job there.
- Open my heart again.
- Stop wasting time.
- Travel: Mexico, Africa.
- Do more outdoorsy things.
- Not be lonely.
- Go to the dentist and doctor.
Pretty simple list, really. Some of them actually involve planning, and some of them don’t. And of course, this is just a sarting place. I am sure that I will edit/add to/delete things again and again.
I guess the next step is figuring out how to get to each of these goals? I should be pragmatic and plan and save and then move back to New Orleans when everything fits. But, I really don’t want to. I want to jump. I know it will all work out in the end, but I don’t know how I will do with the uncomfortableness that comes with jumping again. I am just now settling from my last jump and would kind of like to not do it again for awhile. But then again, I don’t want to get bored either.
Hmm… I can think on it, awhile, but not too long. Thinking is what makes people never do anything and only dream about it. I don’t want to live a life of regret.
I woke up this morning with a story going through my brain. I am writing it down so that I don’t forget! Will definitely have to work on it, as I think it has legs!! Enjoy!
I like frat boys. And boys visiting Bourbon for the first time from Kansas and Colorado. Usually they’re attending their best friend’s bachelor party, here for spring break or simply on that once in a lifetime road trip. And what am I? Well, I’m that local girl that they still dream about even after they’ve sunk back into their everyday life. When they’re sitting in their cubicle, or retelling the story about their trip to New Orleans (they’re all the same); even when they’re lying beside their girlfriend of going on six years now. They still dream about me. About us. About our night together in New Orleans. I’m their story.
I wasn’t always this way. And yes, I still love love as much as the next woman. But somewhere along the line, this way became easier. I always know the outcome this way. I’ll meet a cute guy in The Quarter; he’ll not be able to believe his luck. A local girl is into him. Generally I like to look like a bit of a bad girl, black corset top showing off my Day of the Dead shoulder tattoo, jeans and some funky heels. I usually wear my hair down or piled messily up, and depending on my mood, I may be the sexy smart girl by wearing my nerdy glasses. Boys love this look. Especially the ones with popped collars and too much product in their hair. I am not the girl that they date back home so of course they go for it. I am just about the antithesis.
If I’m not in the bad girl sort of mood, I’ll either go completely prepped out with my own popped collar unbuttoned a little too low with khaki short shorts or a mini and expensive looking sunglasses holding back my hair. Then it’s a nice surprise when the out of town boy gets to see that this girl who does in fact look like someone he would date back home, really is a bad girl when she takes off her shirt.
Like I said, I’ll always know the outcome this way. I’m not a prostitute, or promiscuous really; I honestly don’t get past some flirting and a kiss most of the time. This is just how I fill that need for male attention now. It is so much easier than having a boyfriend; I always know what will happen. We will hangout all night, and maybe part of the next day or so, but he always goes home. Some have promised that they would write, or call or come back to NOLA; whatever. And actually, a few of them do. But for most of them, I am a fantasy. Someone their girlfriend will never find out about. Someone their parent’s will never have to disapprove of. Someone who will not pressure them for a ring, or a promise or a relationship at all. I am just there. In New Orleans, and that’s where I will always be. He can dream about our time together as often as he likes; it wasn’t polluted with all of those relationshipy things that poison passion, lust, love. In that sense, we were perfect. If we were real, we wouldn’t be perfect, so that’s how we like it. It’s that promise of what could have been that is delicious. That keeps us smiling when our everyday life is boring, constrictive, or downright bad.
Today during the incredibly monotonous drive after work, I once again fell into a freeway coma. I was listening to Only by NIN (which is, I think, one of their best. Comes close to Head Like a Hole, Down In It, etc.) and my mind began to wander as it generally does during freeway coma time. I was thinking about seeing them at Voodoo Fest right after Hurricane Katrina. The event organizers gave all of the relief workers (and I don’t know who else) free tickets. It was awesome! They were incredible. Queens of the Stone Age rocked too. I thought about this band, and that band. The video for The Perfect Drug with its masterful rendition of Victorian/Gothic England, or at least my version there of; I swear that Rochester is about to top one of the moors in the video. (I could spend hours analyzing the video; absinthe, Orientalism, and so sexy.) Johnny Cash singing Hurt and making me bawl; and the video; ridiculously good, better even than the original (sorry guys). And how sexy Trent Lott had looked in person, now that he had been hitting the gym…
Trent who? Yeah. In my head I was calling him Trent Lott, Republican senator from Mississippi. I’ve had politics on the brain, but I didn’t think it had done any damage…
Disclaimer: I usually don’t get all wobbly-kneed around celebrities.
So, Brad Pitt wants to build 150 green homes in New Orleans’ lower ninth ward. It is in all of the papers. I knew about this, well, I think it has been a year ago now. What a fantastic opportunity to showboat my Brad Pitt story!
Anyway a year ago give or take, I was working at the swanky law firm in New Orleans. For some reason the heartless lawyers hadn’t yet stolen the windows from the IT Department; we had the best windows in the building. (Right before I left, there were plans to remodel the IT Department into partner offices and conference rooms, shoving the IT Department into cubicles. I told my boss I would quit if I lost my window. But I quit well before that.)
The IT Department was on the second floor of six, and had incredibly lofty 25′ (?) windows with gorgeous arches at the top. The building was built nearly a century ago (more?) and was once the city hall annex (morgue and all. One of the partners’ offices used to be the elevator shaft that carried bodies to the fifth and sixth floor morgue. Always liked that story). Anyway our windows, and my desk in particular looked across a narrow alley way to a famous hall where weddings, press conferences and that sort of thing are now held. It too used to be part of the city hall, and the buildings are in fact joined by “bridges” on two of the floors. Melissa and I would always stare boldly out the window into those of the hall to watch the staging of various parties, conferences and so on.
Melissa heard that Brad Pitt was in town; hell, I’m sure that most everyone knew he was in town (before he bought a house there). Anyway, he was there to announce a new project he was becoming involved in to bring homes back to the Lower Ninth Ward. Generally, I could care less about celebrities, and Brad Pitt was no different. But then something changed. As the day went on, we saw a lot of traffic, and then we heard that Brad Pitt was going to be in the building behind ours! How exciting we thought. But then, we saw someone come in and setup a makeup station. And then, nothing happened. We went about our work, and saw some guy come in, and Oh my God! it was Brad Pitt! We couldn’t really see him, and he wasn’t in there too long, but it was him.
So the press conference happened, Melissa and I went outside to stalk him, but then came back in. He came back in the room. This time he was there for awhile, pacing, he actually cared about what he was talking about it seemed. Suddenly, every legal secretary in the building was at my desk. Yelling. Screaming. Waving. It looked like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Either we made a loud enough ruckus, or he looked our general direction, I don’t know. But he came up to the window (about six feet away) and waved and flashed his movie star smile at us. It was neat, but the stodgy legal secretaries’ reactions were even better.
Eventually Brad left the room. Melissa and I again went outside to stalk him. The crowd had died down substantially; there were literally only seven or eight people waiting. And we had an idea; he was probably going to come out the side door (by our building) where no one else was. We figured out which car was waiting for him, watched it, and made our move. Suddenly Brad Pitt was right there, maybe a foot from us. My God! He was handsome! I made eye contact with him. (Maybe this is too much information, but oh well.) I don’t know why, but from my eyes, he kept moving down; he was checking me out! I know. Generally this is a skeevy guy move that happens more than I like to admit. But this was Brad Pitt. He goes home to Angelina, Angelina, Who? No, but seriously; it made my confidence soar, and my boyfriend was pretty proud too. I got checked out by Brad Pitt; doesn’t matter what he thought upon the checkout (I am sure he only thought marvelous things), it still happened.
For days after, Melissa and I couldn’t stop talking about it, literally. Everyone in the law firm wanted to know what he looked like so close. We told them. Except for the checking out part. It was so silly. Melissa and I caught up in our fantasy world… And then, Melissa had this dream about him mowing her lawn, and walking up behind him, and touching his chest, and… . Well, you get the idea.
Interestingly (to me anyway), Brad Pitt’s house was a street over and a couple of blocks toward the lake from my house on Esplanade (I think anyway). Alas, I never became best friends with Angelina. No dinner parties…
I am a computer nerd at heart. As much as I have tried to get away from it I can’t; it’s me. I love learning new things in every program imaginable, just as much as I love lying on my back wiring a network to full connectivity. When Hurricane Katrina happened, I had recently been laid-off from Hewlett Packard, and was feeling very badly about myself. But Katrina was too big; it snapped me out of my funk, and drove me to do something. As soon as I heard about what had happened, I logged onto the Internet to find out how I could help. To my surprise, I was quickly contacted by the local chapter of the American Red Cross. I explained that I didn’t have much money to donate but that I had plenty of time. I was signed up for volunteer training the very next day.
Initially I was trained to work in Sheltering and Client Casework (or some similarly named groups); almost every volunteer was being trained in these fundamental disaster relief areas, and my chapter didn’t have a technology volunteer group, so I didn’t even know it existed. When I arrived in Louisiana, it was amazing, in good and bad ways. The damage done by the storm was horrific, but the volunteer response was uplifting. Since almost every volunteer on the disaster was assigned to client casework or sheltering, there was a lot of waiting. While waiting for assignment, I noticed some people wiring a network. What was this? Other nerds? So I walked over to take a look.
This is how I was introduced to the Response Technology Group. I asked if I could help with anything, and in fact they needed several volunteers. I worked with the group for the day, and was asked to join that function by the end of the day. So began my nine months in response technology with the Red Cross. I was euphoric; I could actually help people with my nerdiness?
During my time with the Red Cross, I worked with amazing volunteers from all over the world who were working toward the common goal of helping people rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina. I learned so much from others, and know that I taught many people many things. Many of the volunteers coming to the disaster had never used a cell phone, let alone a computer. As part of my work with the Red Cross, I taught grandmothers in their nineties how to make functional Excel spreadsheets; I taught Americorps members how to wire networks. It was amazing.
Since my time with the Red Cross, and specifically during the last year, I have been trying to focus on what I really want out of life; what will really make me happy; which path my life should take. Through this searching I have figured out a few things: 1) I crave helping people; my world is not right unless I am giving back, helping someone. 2) I am a computer nerd; it is me, I may as well be happy with it. 3) I am good at teaching people, and really good at teaching people about technology. 4) I crave experience with other cultures; I have spent my life (aside from my two years in Louisiana) Idaho. Idaho is great, but it is small potatoes (I am funny!); there is so much more to the world. The two years that I spent in Louisiana were amazing; the culture is very different than that of Idaho. I enjoyed very much learning about and interacting with the people, taking part in cultural traditions such as Mardi Gras, and of course eating all of the wonderful Cajun and Creole foods.
Through the soul searching I have done (and I have really, really been searching for the past little bit) I think that serving in the Peace Corps is the next step in achieving my life’s goals; those that I know of anyway. I am at a crossroads in my life; the crossroads. I have finally figured out (I think anyway) the path I should take; this path began with the American Red Cross and Hurricane Katrina, and will be continued with Peace Corps service. Where will it go after that? I haven’t a clue; I only know that service with the Peace Corps is right, is home. The Peace Corps encapsulates all things that make me me; it is where I belong, where my skills work the best, where I am at peace, where I am at home.
But maybe the Peace Corps (And the Red Cross was too?) is running away from my life? I wonder this sometimes. I think the feeling comes from that American Dream ideal that is supposed to be the aim of every good American; well that just doesn’t work for me, yet the draw to it is magnetic, unconscious; we cannot escape it, or can we? I want to, I need to. I would not be happy in this life, I would be settling and selling myself short. Because of the perfunctory draw of the American Dream, anything that is not it, feels itchy, wrong; that is why I sometimes feel that I am running from my life (you know, the one with the two kids, house in the suburbs, etcetera, etcetera…). But its not; for me, for someone I love very much; it is just not it. Its a shame that I felt like I had to live that life; it is a same that anyone feels that pressure. But there are those that love this life, that would live no other. I do not look down on them, no I almost envy them. To those that are really, truly happy, I wish them well. I however, could never be happy in that life, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I was.
My French isn’t too swell, but hopefully you get the gist…
Alright, alright. Thirteen FEMA trailer parks in the New Orleans area are scheduled to close by the end of tomorrow. Hooray! It is over two years later; time to move on. According to the article that I read today, 6,400 households will be affected by the closings. Are you serious? There are still 6,400 households living in FEMA trailers, two years after Katrina? Oh wait. That’s just the FEMA trailers in FEMA sanctioned parks, doesn’t count the FEMA trailers scattered about the city in driveways and empty lots. Those residents number at more than 25,000. Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous.
I get so frustrated when I read about all of this. In the two years since the storm, I have lived in six or seven hotels (as a volunteer with the Red Cross) two houses in New Orleans and now a motorhome (don’t laugh; I’m awesome). Why can’t these people find one place to live? (I know, I know. Some of the people can’t for health reasons, etc., but those people who really, honestly can’t are few and far between.) The majority of the people are lazy and waiting for the government, FEMA, a church, their family, someone (anyone) else to do it for them. That is what is wrong with New Orleans.
The article goes on to describe the housing situation in New Orleans as an emergency. Really? Hmmm… . I did a quick look around Craigslist (New Orleans) and found 89 apartments or house posted today. That seems like a whole bunch of places to live. And that’s just off of Craigslist. There’s also the Times Picayune, word of mouth, signs on the street, many, many different ways to find a place to live. The article even notes that people in trailers were given lists of available properties in their area, but many simply couldn’t beat the pavement (their wording) to look at the houses. Why? Jobs? I highly doubt it.
Okay, okay. Maybe housing is simply too expensive in New Orleans for it even to be plausible for the FEMA trailer residents to find alternate housing. The article does note that the average studio in New Orleans goes for $764 a month while a two bedroom will cost you $990 (our one bedroom in MidCity, in which we were the only occupied, or even gutted home on the block ran us $975 and our lovely two bedroom on Esplanade cost $1500; just for perspective). Apparently a two bedroom apartment rented for $676 a year before Katrina. So yes, there has been a huge rise in housing costs and housing is expensive in general in New Orleans (a nice studio in Boise will run you the whopping amount of $365, and a one bedroom equivalent to the MidCity house will run you around $550. Oh, and I make the same amount of money in New Orleans as I do in Boise. Go figure). But what’s that? Rental assistance from HUD through 2009? Well shoot, then what the hell is the problem? Laziness is a big one, and so is fear of moving on, starting a new life, starting over. Having to think, work and take care of yourself, something many of the FEMA trailer residents have a hard time doing.
Or, we could lower Section 8 housing monthly limits. Because the government gives out such a high dollar amount for Section 8 housing, it inflates the prices for everyone.
I know. Some of the people in the trailers really, really try. But most of the remaining residents should have different homes now. They are simply waiting for someone else to do it for them.
And why should the government take care of people like this? What has happened to our churches and communities and neighbors and families? The country didn’t used to work like this (okay, so it has for a long, long time), but still; what happened to the sense of community that helped establish this country? Are our families so broken and disjointed that we cannot take in an aunt or a cousin and help them get back on their feet? Or our neighbor; can’t we help them?
I don’t know. New Orleans is a different kind of city. It is stuck in years past. Corruption, laziness and the smack of racism still haunt every corner. I don’t pretend to have answers. I just know that New Orleans doesn’t work. It is a dichotomy of the haves and have-nots, the black and whites, the natives and the newcomers, the utterly rich in Audubon and the people living under the overpass at Canal and Claiborne. It is a city of contradictions. Maybe it would have been better if New Orleans would have drowned.
New Orleans devraient avoir noyé
I will write about the books I am reading, or have just finished. I am always reading something. Right now, I am reading The House of Spirits. Lately, I have been on a Latin American/magical realism kind of kick; I just ploughed through One Hundred Years of Solitude for the third time. I love Marquez’s works. I think I have read them all, my favorite being Memories of My Melancholy Whores; fantastic. I like Allende because she reminds me so much of Marquez, in a lesser sort of way. There are so many instances in her books that I am struck by how similar the writing is; some of the plot lines are even the same, especially the grandmother making her granddaughter prostitute herself until she pays back all that the grandmother is owed theme. I don’t know if it is intentional or not, but the writing is SO similar.
The thing that I like the best about both Allende and Marquez is the way that their writing makes me feel. It is hard for me to remember distinct details from either of their writings, but this is due to the soothing, melodic way of their writing. Both writers use magic and an alternate reality. When I read their books, I feel that I am there. I am lulled into the worlds of Allende and Marquez, and everything is wonderful. I love nothing better than to read one of their books, even only a few lines, while taking a bath and then fall into bed for a lovely night’s rest. Both of these authors allow me to do something I can do with no other; I can pick up any writing by either of them, and read only a few lines, words even, and be transported into that world, relaxing my real world’s troubles away, calming me, pacifying me. They are the only two (well for the most part) that I can read again and again.
On a completely different note, I have just finished The Eyre Affair and Into the Wild. I was so excited to read The Eyre Affair and have been since the novel came out a few years ago. The novel started out fabulously; plenty of literary allusions, as the name promised, and great characters, but in the end, I found the female lead’s character a bit lacking, but I think this was due to the author being a man; sorry, men often can’t get women right. And, by the middle of the book the novelty wore off and I was a bit bored. It was a story like so many others in the end; although quite cleverly done.
I picked up Into the Wild at the Seattle airport, bored with the above book. I have to say, I don’t generally buy popular books like this, but (alas!) I was sucked in by Eddie Vedder’s fantastic rendition of Hard Sun (here comes the junior high crush again!) and the fact that Sean Penn had everything to do with the movie version of the book. I read the book in a day or two, and couldn’t put it down. The writing wasn’t necessarily fantastic, but the story was so good. Alex/Chris is so real (I know he was real). I saw so much of myself and someone I love in him. He was a passionate young man who took his extreme feelings to the ultimate end. This is what can happen if we don’t lead a balanced life.
For a very long time, I tried to stay away from books that Oprah had as part of her book club. In the beginning, she would only do works by living writers, and this pissed me off to no end. Recently though, she has been including some of my favorite books. I remember the first (I think) work by a dead author that she covered, Anna Karenina. How can anyone not love this book? It is definitely one of my favorites. And now, she is doing a second book by Marquez; bravo! East of Eden (a book that actually made me contemplate moving to Salinas) is another good book she picked. Just thought I would throw that in there. I love John Steinbeck too! And Cather, and Hemingway, and Abbey, and almost every other author except Shakespeare. (Would you believe I actually made it through school, as an English major no less, without taking a single course about him? Hooray for me!)
I know. Not New Orleans. One day, I want to go through and clean out all of the posts like this, leaving behind those strictly related to Louisiana. But for now, since only non-New Orleans things are about all that I can write, they will stay.
Hmmm… . This is definitely not fun. I can’t write about New Orleans in an amusing, or even angry sort of way. I have sat down several times during the last few days and… nothing. Where did my writing mojo go? What happened? (Did you read Thursday’s post? Rubish!) There is so much I want to say about the place. It was such a huge part of my life. Maybe that’s the problem? I can’t sort anything out? I don’t know.
I know, I know. I just need to start writing, get the juices flowing that sort of thing. I don’t know. I have been doing plenty of other writing, just not here. In an effort to get back on the writing wagon, here is a list of some of the more defined sections (don’t know what else to call them) of writing about New Orleans that I have stored up in my brain. (Forgive me if I wander a bit!)
- My first days as a volunteer
- The general setup of the Red Cross headquarters; I think it is pretty interesting that an empty WalMart was turned into the control center for the response to Hurricane Katrina. The logistics fascinate me, and hopefully, will fascinate others.
- Relationships at the DRO — DR wife/husband (keep reading the blog and you will find out what that is!); actual relationships; cheating on one’s significant other who was safe at home while their mate was out doing good (I did not participate in this, but it seemed almost a disease on the DR; everyone was doing it).
- Some of the interesting people I met and probably never would have outside the Red Cross (Vito, etc.).
- Gossip, gossip, gossip.
- Brushes with fame and celebrities as part of the Red Cross
This is a small representation of the things I want to include here, and hell, they aren’t even as defined as I thought they would be. I have the before I went to Louisiana, and the first couple of days clearly recorded as I like, but cannot seem to move past that point. I have a scribble here and a scratch there about my time there, but I cannot seem to put together another cohesive piece that could be loosely referred to as an essay. That’s going to make it really hard when I try and sell my idea to a publisher!
I do have one piece I have been working on (it requires research) regarding New Orleans and Detroit. As we all have heard by now, Detroit was named the most dangerous city in the country. How can this be? Have the researchers even set foot in (or heard of for that matter) New Orleans’ crime rate? Anyway, it should be an interesting piece once I finish it.
So for now, I will stay stuck. I want to, need to, write about Louisiana, but can’t. Hopefully the writing gods will be kind to me soon.
One of the most striking things I remember from my early days in New Orleans was all of the debris. My eyes couldn’t get a break. There were flooded-out cars everywhere; driveways, under overpasses, parking lots, the neutral ground, and along the city streets; anywhere people could ditch them in their haste to leave the city. Depending on the part of the city I was in, the cars had waterlines (almost all of them had multiple flood lines, as the water receded over a few days) in various spots. Some of the cars only flooded a couple of inches, while some flooded completely. As months went by, the cars rusted, insurance adjusters looked at them, and people stole every part that could possibly bring in a dime off of the heaps. It was much longer than a year before the wrecks were towed from the public places like under the city’s overpasses. Depressing. (I searched and searched to find an image to link to here, but couldn’t find any that did the scene justice. I should have taken more pictures, or at least have been more careful of those that I took. At the time though, I didn’t think that an underpass littered with decaying cars needed to be photographed.)
Trees and plants in general were another thing that littered the city. Countless trees fell, or rather blew, over (City Park lost more than a thousand from its thirteen acres; and that is just one park). Everyone’s landscaping was completely ruined, and remember this is the South; very wet, and very green; plants grow everywhere! In the area north of the lake (I think it was north, I am still thrown by my loss of directional sense there; I am quite good at it normally) countless pine trees were damaged, to an extent that they weren’t even suitable for saw dust or mulch (? I too thought this was odd. Isn’t “damaged” just about the only way to get sawdust or mulch?).
As time went on, and people began to return to their homes, a new batch of debris came about; household goods. Everything found in a house made it to the curb, neutral ground or some other similar place. For months piles of mattresses, clothing, furniture, mirrors, dishes-everything was seen everywhere in the city. I don’t know what was okay to save and what wasn’t. I guess once the mold got in… After people cleared their soggy homes of contents, gutting began. People would rip out flooring (unless it was original heart of pine, or something similar), wood, drywall, plaster, everything, up to a certain point in the house. I thought this was so strange, but people would only gut their homes up a bit beyond the high water mark. This doesn’t seem okay. Even if the majority of my home was above the water, I would be skeptical about saving any of it. That water was gross. And if you are going to cut out eight feet of plaster, etc., why not just go the whole distance?
So what happened to all of this debris? Well, for a long time, it just sat there. I remember driving from New Orleans proper into Metairie via City Park a few months after the storm. I couldn’t believe the piles of debris. There is an opening between the cities in this area and it was literally covered fifty feet high in trash. One website noted the amount of debris immediately following the storm at the size of “200 football fields, piled 50 feet high.” And this doesn’t even count the debris coming from rebuilding in the following months. I know that several firms were hired to pick up the debris, but I don’t know where it eventually went to rest. I do know that there were several illegal dumping operations uncovered in New Orleans East. Sad.
I returned home to the motorhome today; I had a murderous trip home (I don’t want to get in to details, because it isn’t worth it, but basically, my flight was delayed from 7:55 pm to 9:55, to 10:35, to 11:45 last night until it was finally cancelled; I was finally on a flight today at noon).
Sitting in the airport thinking, wanting to be alone, and reading Into the Wild, really made me think about what I am doing with myself. When I got home, and was driving out to my parents’ house, I started crying; I couldn’t stop. Here I was cruising down I-84, tears pouring out of my eyes, with not stop in sight. What was going on? Well, I felt tired and travel-worn from the weekend, but more than that, it was a generally feeling of not belonging. The life I am living is simply not right; it becomes more and more clear to me everyday.
While I was in Seattle I talked to people when I was out and about, in bars, and all over the place; it was really nice. And, I felt more like me than I have felt since I left New Orleans, no, it was much before that. Eventually the topics always circled around to “So, what do you do?” I would go on to explain that I was simply visiting Seattle, and that I had recently returned to Boise from a stint in New Orleans at a law firm and the American Red Cross hoping to live a grand and exciting life there, but walking away empty handed. I explained to people what the city was really like, that it wasn’t the happy thriving place depicted in the commercials with the Musician’s Village development and Harry Connick Jr. acting as front man. I explained that even if the city hadn’t been virtually destroyed by the storm that it wouldn’t be good.
It was also nice to explain my role in everything, to explain the tension I felt from working for both the good and bad guys (Red Cross and Corporate Defense Firm). I am still seeing just how deeply this tension runs every day. It was nice to talk to people about this, to gain a fresh perspective. The more people I talked to about New Orleans (and many people wanted to listen, and I won’t say that it wasn’t nice to be a pseudo-star for a bit) the more insight I gained into my time there. Despite all that happened there, the giant steps backwards I took in terms of self-development, the deep depression I fell into, I still think that I was supposed to go to New Orleans; maybe I shouldn’t have stayed so long, but I definitely was supposed to be there.
I say this for several reasons, one of which is obviously my meeting Ben, which I am not concerned with in this post, but chiefly, I think that my time in New Orleans set me on the path to figure out what I am supposed to do in life. (As I have written earlier, career-wise this needs to be some sort of chaos-filled humanitarian field.) Most importantly it awakened the good vs. bad fight that is present (and often subdued) within each of us. I really feel like shit for working for Rock Wolfman; I mean these guys may as well have been raping and pillaging distant villages; it was absolutely horrible, and it is so easy to get sucked into when that is all that surrounds you.
To deal with being bad people (at least I think it is some coping mechanism) everyone is plastic, focused on only the external: $500 suits, $1000 shoes, which restaurants you went to for lunch and who you saw there, what kind of car you drive, whether you live in Metairie or Uptown; ridiculous when you really think about it.
As if the ambient work environment wasn’t bad enough Administration thrived on beating down the office staff, almost all of which were fresh college graduates with just as many smarts as the attorneys they painstakingly labeled folders or copied and pasted letters for. The HR director (a woman with her own closets full of skeletons) made so many people cry; this is not something that is supposed to happen in a business, and it wasn’t because of the office staff; it was the HR director and the executive director; pure evil. Single women in their fifties, absolutely poisoned by the lawyers they worked beneath for years.
I do not, cannot thrive in that environment. And the fact that the firm represented the bad guys (insurance firms) in the whole Katrina thing didn’t seem incongruous to me when I took the job (perhaps because I was blinded by hope, love, and a sense of rebirth) but slowly it wore me down, until I was a shadow of myself. I cannot believe that I was one of them. I feel very guilty, and silly for not even knowing what I was doing at the time. Self awareness hasn’t ever been my strong suit, and now I need to bring it to the forefront even more so; I don’t ever want to lose myself for some other purpose, good or bad, again.
