God, but I loathe December. Always have. It more than fulfills the calendar function of being the opposite pole from June, a month I enjoy. There's seldom if ever anything good about December (with all due respect to the brother of mine born this wretched month), and this one has been particularly cruel. It started out so promisingly, a light out of the dim, an unclotting of the blood. Hope was regained, tentatively believed. Fate turned and attacked. Freezing on the corner, abandoned, with less than before.

1:31pm

The actual travel went better than I'd expected. A half a vicodin before each leg of the flight (Oakland to Denver, Denver to New Orleans) took the edge off nicely and helped my legs cope with the lack of space. Indeed, it made the second leg all the more surreal, since not only were Maddy and I separated, but we were flying Ted by United, referred to simply as Ted.

Ted being the last three letters of United, you see. (I actually overheard someone having it explained to them.) Ted is what happens when a desperate airline—which is to say, an airline—decides to hire really expensive marketing people to jazz up the flight experience. There is no doubt in my mind that the words "edgy" and "hip" were each used more than once in proposals and planning meetings.

All of which is fine and dandy, except that the overhead video screens are now on during the entire flight. Pretty damn close, anyway. United (sorry, "Ted") and General Electric seem to have some sort of deal, since "Tedevision" is mostly commercials interspersed with NBC programming. The audio was optional, but it was hard not to be distracted by the screens. I didn't want to have to see Paris Hilton vapiding her way through an interview with Conan O'Brien, but Ted wanted me to see it, so I didn't have much choice, even though I tried my best to keep my nose buried in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Yep, I've started reading them again, with a vengeance. I recently finished Azkaban, and I wanted something which was sure to hold my interest while lasting for the entire week.

I'd brought my own munchies along, so I didn't need to spend the fiver for their assorted boxlunches of junk food. "Fun food for fun people," they call it. I felt so very sorry for the flight attendant as she tried to read those words over the loudspeaker while retaining her dignity.

The threatened afternoon thunderstorms in New Orleans didn't happen. The sky was gray, and there was rain in the distance, but nothing like had been predicted. We checked in at our hotel around five and oriented ourselves as best as possible, including calling Poppy to let her know we'd made it in town. The buzz of being there was seriously harshed by the laptop first deathrattling, and then, after deciding to work, refusing to connect to the hotel's wifi connection. It was not a good sign. For not the first time, I was tempted to go to Best Buy or some such place, apply for one of their horribly over-interested credit cards, and get myself the most baddest-assed PC laptop I could. Yeah, it would be a phenomenally bad idea on a number of levels. I have lots of bad ideas, and I don't act on most of them.

From there, we set off for the French Quarter. Because we're tourists, and that's what tourists do.

Our specific destination was Coop's Place, which Maddy has many fond memories of eating at on her last New Orleans visit in '99. The thunderstorm was finally happening as we hiked along Decatur, only vaguely certain that we were on the right street. Though the rain wasn't coming down too hard, I suspect it resulted in the lack of (other) tourists. It was one of the last times Decatur would seem so open. Because of her hood, Maddy missed every flash of lightning.

There didn't seem much point in delaying my inevitable fall off the vegetarian wagon while in New Orleans, so I ordered the pasta jambalaya. Damn good, and my body didn't rebel at the sausage like I'd suspected it might.

We got back to the hotel around seven. It had been a long day already, starting with getting up at three in the morning (Pacific Time), but we were not done for the evening. I'd been unable to book a gig, so an open mic seemed the next best thing, and there was one that night at the Neutral Ground Coffehouse. As best as I could tell from the rather useless map from AAA, the place wasn't too far away, and all but a few blocks were accessible by the St. Charles Streetcar, which happened to stop right outside our hotel.

I called Poppy to confirm the actual location and how to get there. She said that she'd try to make it to the open mic to see me read, but no promises. I wasn't holding my breath. My own flesh and blood didn't come out to see me read at a feature performance in Hollywood (or even acknowledge my attempts to tell him about it), so I certainly wouldn't expect a friend to brave the horrors of a poetry open mic, especially considering how busy she is.

The open mic is what I suppose old-school events to be like. No signup sheet, and the host brought along a stack of poetry books for anyone who wanted to read aloud. It's hard to imagine something like that out here, where it seems like everyone has their own material. Michelle's The Beautiful was among the books, and I chatted a bit with the host about her, and gave him the three chapbooks I'd brought along even though I knew I wouldn't be reading from at least two of them. It's almost as though I was hoping to give them to somebody. Go figure.

Much to my surprise and honor, Poppy did show up. Unfortunately, for her first time hearing me read, my energy level was a little low. It's only fair, really, considering what a day I'd had, but it was still frustrating, like the needle could never quite make it into the groove. I read two pieces I've read many times before, so there weren't any surprises like there might have been with newer material, but I know I've given stronger performances of both of them before.

She seemed to enjoy it, though, and no doubt she's done her share of fresh-off-the-plane readings. She said it was brave of me to read my Jesus slash Judas story in New Orleans. I never would have forgiven myself if I hadn't, though. I suppose it helped that her and Maddy constituted an entire third of the listening audience, a mob I could probably outrun if necessary. The host liked my material, and I could tell that his wife was really getting into it as well. We talked a bit afterwards. I tend to connect more with women than men, I've noticed. This is not me complaining.

It hadn't rained for a couple hours, and didn't look like it was going to. During the show, as we were listening to yet another reader with his hands in his pockets (an epidemic, I tell you), a harsh wind started blowing. The flyers near the open door of the cafe fluttered loudly. In a movie, it would have signaled the entrance of a dark force. And maybe it was.

From there, it was a drink at a beautifully lit yet somewhat yuppified bar, followed by a brief driving tour of New Orleans by Poppy. She showed us, among other places, the swanktastic restaurant she'd be taking us to the following evening as belated wedding present, as well as the home neighborhood of the main characters of her current novels. She seemed most excited about the best guess for the home of Ignatius J. Reilly, the main character from her favorite novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. It was not unlike the way some City-based horror readers get about a certain SRO in the Tenderloin.

All was well. We'd arrived, we were hanging out with a good friend, and all our troubles and demons were back home, where they belonged. It would surely be the vacation we hoped and needed it to be.

3:20pm

Then the moment of clarity faded like charity does, sometimes
I opened one eye
And I put out my hand just to touch your soft hair
To make sure in the darkness that you were still there
And I have to admit
I was just a little afraid

But then...
I had a little bit of luck
You were awake
I couldn't take another moment alone.

I've resumed the job hunt in earnest. It's just as bad out there as it ever was.

in my hands, do you understand that? i was holding it, and now it's gone...

I have many pages of notes taken in New Orleans. I don't know what will become of them.

Dunno how I'm going to do it anyway. Not sure I have the discipline necessary to exercise without the benefit of a gym. I was considering putting a new gym membership on my credit card, but the car repairs have kinda put the kibosh on that one.

9:42pm

Finally, the rain.

Our car was in front of Ump's apartment in Alameda, right where we'd left it. It still took five minutes for the engine to warm up, the brakes continue to squeal shrilly, and the left turn signal remains fux0red. My employment status has not changed, even though my cash reserves are a tad lower.

Yep. We're back home.

So, we're making our way back to the St. Charles streetcar line and (eventually) our hotel after a day of walking around the French Quarter. After the unseasonably cold, inclement weather of the last few days, it's finally closer to how we're told New Orleans is supposed to be in December.

The Hustler Hollywood store on Bourbon catches our attention. It's an adult store, predictably, with the lingerie and novelties downstairs and the pr0n upstairs. There are widescreen teevees on both floors. The one visible to the street is playing The People vs. Larry Flynt; the one upstairs, also predictably, is showing pr0n. The People vs. Larry Flynt is still represented, however; the bottom row of each shelf of pr0n videos is devoted to the movie. By my math, there are two thousand, three hundred and seventy-six copies available for sale. I wonder if they're on some sort of consignment, or if they've been purchased by the store. If so, I wonder what their cost per unit was. Must be some sort of extreme bulk discount, I figure.

Not that I spent the entire time there pondering store economics. I also attempted to find the tranny selection, if any. It was buried deep within the "Fetish" section, which makes as much sense as anywhere else. Maddy observes they have more midget pr0n than tranny. That says something about our culture, but I haven't the foggiest idea what.

She also brings a particular movie to my attention. We always keep an eye out for goth or vampire themed movies. We almost never watch them, but it's fascinating to see how they're marketed. Anyway, this one is called VamBIres. (I'll give you a moment to figure out the clever pun of the title.) (Got it? Good.) Looking at the box, I notice that one of the women looks not unlike The Other. Just for kicks, I read the cast list. Nah, it couldn't be—

Good lord. It is her. She used her real name. Well, her first and middle names, anyway. (Misspelled, but that's probably a typo.) Wow. That's pretty brave, I guess. Even Danielle didn't use her real last name when she made movies, and she's all about the publicity.

It isn't a tranny video—she was always very adamant that she hated tranny pr0n, thought it was horribly insulting, et cetera—so it's presumably after she had SRS, I've been told was in '97 or so. How about that. For as utterly fascinated as I was, though, at forty dollars it was about thirty-five dollars too expensive to seriously consider buying. No doubt I could find it online cheaper, or for rent back home.

Returning to the hotel room to find the wifi working for a change (one of the reasons I haven't posted since we've been here is my extreme level of frustration with the internet connection), I did a bit of research. The one other entry in her filmography (under that name, anyway) is a title I know I've seen at Good Vibrations. I've always been kinda curious about it since it has a really great cover, and, well, now I guess I'm going to have to rent it, won't I?