Open Letter to New Orleans

Nola,
i almost don't know what to say to you. we've been together for so long that i really do feel as if you're a part of me. i now know that i'll be leaving you soon. don't worry, i'll come back to visit and you'll always be with me, no matter where i go.
i worry about you so often. every summer i'll be watching and hoping that nothing comes your way to harm you. i'll keep up with my charities, etc from scotland. i'm even keeping this post as 'from the streets of katrinaville' because i feel that, no matter where i am, my heart is here. i'll miss your oak trees and your festivals. i'll miss your food and your music. i'll miss your heart and personality.
take care of my family and friends while i'm gone, please. keep them safe.
stay in touch. i know i will.
love always,
nic

Brad Pitt reminds Washington that New Orleans still exists

i have to give it to you brad, you're still coming through for us...

while i have to admit that i'm sick of seeing pics of st ang running around in wigs in dc making her new film, 'salt', i have to say that you have opted to use your time hanging in dc with your baby momma for a good cause.
for those of you who don't know, brad is in washington right now (with angie, who's making some movie... i'm sure you've seen the wonked out pics). he has met with nancy pelosi and other dem leaders to try to gain some support from washington for his 'make it right' program here in new orleans. way to bring it to the top, brad! i know that you were going grass roots for a long time and that's fab but we all know that DC has totally forgotten about us (not that they don't have some other pretty weighty issues to deal with now). with the economy as it is, it's getting even harder here than it was before so brad decided to take it to the top and get the government involved (as we can all agree that they haven't really noticed us since sometime around the 28th of august, 2005).
way to go, brad!! push 'make it right', let them know we're here, we still need help and make them do your bidding (well, everyone else does-- why would the senate be any different?). seriously, way to keep on keeping on!
all the best,

nic

ps-- i just read that he's even been granted an audience with obama himself to talk about new orleans. rock it, brad. bush might not care about black people but something tells me that obama does. good luck!

pps-- i read some thing online about an interview in which they asked anniston about brad (did you really expect anything different?) and she apparently said that she was, 'way over him'. ok, jenn. we believe you. suuuuuuure we do. and you didn't look nervous at the oscars while angie was looking up and laughing at you and your stuttering, stumbling speach, either.

The Inside Scoop: Brangelina actually shop for themselves and they don't care if lowly supermarket workers have to come in early or stay late.

so i heard through the grapevine that at some point last week (so the story goes- and i got this from a good source) that in the wee hours of the morning whole foods market on magazine got a call from either st. angie herself or from one of the members of her army of assistants (i'm sure it was an assistant) saying that st. angie wanted to come in to get some schwag from whole foods but that (of course) she couldn't be arsed with dealing with the masses who would (naturally) follow her around and try to touch her so that whatever disease they might have would be instantly cured. ok, maybe her assistant didn't say that but it was said that st. angie COULD NOT mingle with the masses and demanded that whole foods open early for st. angie and ONLY st. angie. whole foods (for whatever reason) obliged and opened early. st. angie came in alone (gasp) and did her shopping and then left. (meeg said that he thinks she just couldn't be arsed waiting in line)

too sexy to mingle

it gets better...

later that day the very same whole foods got a call from sir brad saying that HE wanted some schwag from whole foods but that HE could not be arsed with the masses so could they stay open late so that he could walk around the store unmolested. yet again whole foods obliged and made their poor staff stay at work for an extra hour so that sir brad could wander around and buy the things that (inexplicably) his baby momma did not get for him while she was there earlier that same day.

too cool to mingle

what makes all this amusing (while not surprising) is that a-listers go into whole foods alllll the time. sean penn (love him or hate him) went in on a sunday no less (a crazy busy day) and no one bugged him in the least bit. drew brees (while not an international a-lister, is certainly HUGELY famous in new orleans) goes to whole foods on a weekly basis and even sits in the breezeway at the tables and eats lunch, sometimes staying for over an hour and nobody bothers him at all. some notable others that don't require such special treatment are- forrest whitaker, john c. reiley (who hilariously was in there, drunk, at 10am and knocked over an entire display of wine bottles, breaking them all over the floor), selma hayek, harry shearer (mr. burns), laurence fishburn, brittney murphy (although who would really go talk to her?), john goodman is in ALL of the time, james carvill goes in multiple times a week, minnie driver, lenny kravitz (who is apparently really picky about his water), harry connick jr (again, maybe not so internationally huge-- but locally ENORMOUS), the manning brothers (eli and peyton), and a bunch of saints players (like deuce and bush).

really what i'm getting at is why can brad and angie not shop with us, why don't they care if people with children have to work an hour later because they can't shop with the rest of us, why they both had to personally go in on the same day, making some people who were pulling doubles come in early AND stay late and why can they not only shop with us but why is it that the likes of sean penn and forrest whitaker can?

Oh Academy... way to prove me right

in response to meeg's comment on my last post i have to say that it's a crime that cate blanchett and tilda swindon (meeg, didn't we discuss that somehow they're like 2 sides of the same coin and that it's a weird superman/clark kent thing with them?) are in the

horror film, 'the curious case of... oh, sorry, even the title makes me fall asleep'. they're both so good in so many other things (although i do feel like tilda has a slightly greater propensity to be in questionable things-- 'michael clayton' springs to mind).

also, i'd like to bring up the fact that my boss told me today that he really liked benjamin button and when i said that it was like 'forrest gump' only slower, longer and more painful he responded with, "that's why it was great! it was like 'forrest gump' meets 'titanic'". i don't think that i needto say anything else there. if you feel like you'd enjoy the celluloid bastard love-child of 'titanic' and 'forrest gump' then 'the curious case of benjamin button' is for you. if the thought of that makes you want to stab your eyes out with the needles used for any one of saint angie's tats then don't see it.

i also feel vindicated that i wrote this (and said, 'shame on you, academy!!') the day BEFORE the noms came out and then 'curious case' was nominated for everything from 'best douche in a leading role' to 'douchiest screenplay'. i just KNEW that they would end up rewarding this fuckery. oh, and for nominating angiblahina for best actress, too. if she wins i think it's one of the

signs of the coming of the apocalypse.

i do have to say that the only thing that really saves the academy this year is the fact that they have actually recognized the greatness of 'slumdog millionaire' and its director danny boyle (whose body of work is just plain amazing).

Musings on love and leaving...

how can one be certain of love? love that is received, not given. it is not a question of what is in one's own heart and mind, that is for another day. it is a question of how one knows the hearts and minds of those around them. the love that you are given can seem like a fleeting thing-- when you question if their words are real, wonder why the phone rings with no answer, when you feel loneliness creeping up behind you...
it can all be abandoned and a new start can be made. but then how, if you love, can you not care if that love is returned? for what is love without its reciprocation? it is a hollow feeling, a state of unrequitedness that makes melancholy take up residence in your heart and soul.
i sit and wonder if they or she or he still love me, if they will love me when i am far away, if they will love me in 20 years. will we still be friends then? will we still be lovers? will all of those who i hold dear turn from me? will they be lost to me and i to them?
i dread the day when i know that all is lost. i feel it coming on, i feel it rushing towards me like the water from a levee breach. will i drown in the love that i still hold but that is no longer returned? will the heart of my heart break when i look around to see no one around?
my soul cries out, "of course it will! you can feel it coming, you know it will, it is the reason that these questions come to mind. you ask because you know the reality that the future holds. it is the fear of this reality that creates these questions. you think that if you ask that it will not happen. you cannot stop the future. your future cannot be avoided with mere musings."
i look out into the grey snowy monet of my future and i see the little house covered in snow. only the remembrances of love past make the fire burn to keep me warm enough to stave off freezing. in my chair i close my eyes, the love lights flicker as they sputter to nothing but a smoking ember and then so do i.

Open Letter to Brad Pitt...

Mr. Pitt (or should i call you Brad?),

there are a few things that i feel we need to talk about. i was reflecting this morning on things i have said concerning you in past posts (and conversations, etc) and i think that i might have been being a bit unfair. that's right, i admitted it. i can't say that i am one of your biggest fans, not by any stretch of the imagination. sure, you're a handsome fellow but i can't even say that i think you're swoon-worthy (hopefully, this isn't something you take offense to- you have plenty of women swooning over you, you certainly don't need to count me among them. i just go for a different type, that's all- see my post on the scots). anyway, i digress. point of fact- you aren't an idiot and i really don't think that i can see you being the mailable type. i made a case that you were wooed into your current relationship through coercion. i don't believe that to be true anymore. i think that you are being truthful when you say that you fell in love.

i have to admit that i'm not a big fan of the jumping ship on your wife thing but i can't say that i don't understand that if you realize that you're not in love with said wife that it's not best for both of you to move on. you must understand that it seems as if your ex is doing a bit of flailing about. it seems as if she's still in love with you and that provoked a feeling of pity in me. one so profound, in fact, that i held you (or more to the point, your current partner) responsible for the pain and suffering of your cuckolded ex-wife.

now, i don't know if that article in which angelina admitted to actually having an affair with you while you were married is true or not. if it is, that's something that i think we both know is wrong. i think that you've been not just a little selfish in the way you handled things vis a vis jen. that whole spread you did in W magazine with angie and your pretend family (not the recent one, the one you did right at the very second of your divorce) was really lacking in tact. i'm sure it was fun and maybe you just weren't thinking but i can't see you as the type of person who would be malicious enough to hurt someone on purpose-- you kind of did though, jen even admitted that that really hurt her. that's not cool. you could have waited to release those for her sake. ultimately though, your relationships with jen and angie (whatever they may be or have been and however i may feel about the two women irrespective of you) are your business. who's to say that jen's not actually just horrid and that she totally deserved the W pic spread (although i don't actually believe that)?

ok i'm wandering all over the place now and i'm sure you're wondering what point i'm trying to make. here we go-- even though i have mixed feelings about your main squeeze, maybe she is the love of your life and it doesn't really matter if i like her. if i want to not like her that should be independent of my feelings for you. my feelings for you are on the lukewarm to positive side (much more leaning toward positive because of

'make it right' and your love for my hometown, naturally [SIDEBAR- everyone who hasn't checked out what brad's been up to down here really, really needs to because it's one of the best things we have happening here. it's still about recovery, it's still active and he's not going away like so many others have. scope it, it's actually really awesome-- http://www.makeitrightnola.org/ ]).


i have to say that i actually DO want to see, 'the curious case of benjamin button'. and not because i think it's going to be so bad that i just have to witness it myself but because i think it might actually be good. and, you've always known that i liked, 'fight club'. there are a few films scattered throughout your career that i appreciate and think are really quite good (i think the ocean's movies are totally self-indulgent but that's a bone i have to pick more with your friend george than with you). there are some that i think are pretty crappy (we both know i'm talking about 'the mexican' again. what were you thinking?). anyway, point is that i'm sorry that i went off saying that you were manipulated. i don't think that you're the type of guy who would be. i'm not saying that i think you behaved in the nicest possible way but i'm still going to accept that if you say you're happy and in love then you are and we'll leave it at that. i like mia farrow but i didn't freak on woody when all of that went down. why should i freak on you (not that i'm saying you're a woody-- let's not get ahead of ourselves) for doing something that was actually a lot less... let's say creepy?



so, let's bury the hatchet. i won't say that your woman conned you or anything like that anymore and just let you have your happy little home life. don't think that this means that i'm going to be all lovey with her though. i still think that there's something super weird about her but again, the heart wants what it wants and i'll leave you alone on that one from now on.
well, i'm glad that that's over anyway. now we can just go have a drink and a smoke and talk about wtf is up with jen and john. oh, too soon? right. sorry.

much love to you and your new crazy mustache,
nic

Just a bit of an update...

So, due to a series of family tragedies my boss has decided to close shop. He said that he would pay me the check that he owes me on the 1st of december but i somehow doubt that i'll be getting that (although i really do need it for rent, bills, savings, etc). so here i am... unemployed. we still have some saving to do to be able to make it to scotland in april, i obviously still have bills to pay until then and the market is bare. i'm doing my best to find something but i fear that i will end up at yet another coffee shop making just enough to make ends meet (i hope).
my father and my father in law have said that they won't let it come down to us not having the money to move, so that's one good thing.
really there's no other news. i have tons of packing to do, lots of furniture and books, etc to give away (or sell) and only a few months to do it in.
i can't wait to move and to have all of this stress behind me (and i hope to find a job soon- i know it won't be until after the thanksgiving holidays but i really need something to materialize).
i hope that all of you who read this (and know me personally) are planning on coming out and visiting once we're out there and settled. you know i love you all and would love to have you come visit any time you like.
again, just keeping you posted as to what's up with me.

we'll be doing lots of fun nola stuff in the time that we have left here so if any of you find yourselves in new orleans give us a call and we'll go have an adventure!!

hope you're all well.

happy thanksgiving

i'm thankful for the love of my family and friends.
i'm thankful that i have a place to live and food on my table.
i'm thankful that i have a good life and a chance at an even better one.
i'm thankful that me, my friends and family are all safe, happy (for the most part), and healthy.
i'm thankful for all of you.

much love to you all.

Thanksgiving is Neigh (and christmas and new year's and mardi gras)

amazingly enough thanksgiving is fast approaching. here in new orleans thanksgiving sparks off a series of holidays that doesn't end until february 24th.

first we begin with tofurkey day. somehow that doesn't seem to end until almost the end of november. everyone has that 4 day weekend during which they gorge themselves and sleep way too much (i won't even mention the drinking). for some it is a time to spend with loved ones and family-- a happy occasion filled with laughter and fun. for others it's the time of the year during which you can't escape the people you do your best to ignore for 10 months out of the year.

my brother, robin, always says that it's his favorite holiday. there's lots of food, no obligatory presents, drink, merriment and the odd familial argument that is forgotten as soon as there are plates on the table laden with food (at which point all differences are put aside).


i agree with him to a certain extent. not much is expected of anyone on thanksgiving. you show up (either alone or with your wife/husband/partner/kids) and you sit around with people you've known all of your life and you simply eat until you pass out. there is no pressure (except the pressure put on the poor sod that has to cook everything- a good way to alleviate this is to have everyone bring something to the table. let that one person cook the turkey- or tofurkey, as the case may be- and let everyone else bring something that is instrumental to the meal). if everyone pitches in with the dishes then it should be a stress-free holiday for all. it's the perfect time to reminisce about all of the insane things your parents/spouses/siblings/kids have done in the past (but keep it light-hearted so that nobody gets offended!). good laughs can be had by all and it's a perfect familial bonding day.

as soon as thanksgiving is over, however, the rush towards christmas has begun. the day (and weekend) after this most precious of holidays is instantly taken over by the christmas rush. correct me if i'm wrong but isn't the day after thanksgiving known as black friday? the friday (and weekend) after thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day/weekend of the year!! nothing like getting a jump on things!!

so, after thanksgiving we have less than a month to decorate (buy trees and lights and all of that nonsense-- not to mention presents for everyone you've ever met. it's not a time for just spending time with family. it's a time to see if you are going to get what you've been angling for all year. unlike thanksgiving, christmas is not a low-pressure familial romp down memory lane. it's a time to feign delight at the socks that your auntie margret got you (even though you're 30 and you have more socks than you know what to do with). it's not a time of laughing together with no strings attached, it's a time to guage how well your family and friends know you (and how much they like you-- if they get you something at all, that is). christmas dinner can be quite pleasant (if people aren't still bitter about the wonky presents that they've received) but the main thought on everyone's mind is always, 'why didn't i get what i really wanted?'. i, for a long time, labored under the delusion that christmas was a time when we were grateful that our loved ones thought enough about us to go get us presents at all, that it was a spiritual holiday, that we should be happy to be alive and together and to sing carols and one another's praises. i suppose i was wrong.

then, not a week later we have new year's to deal with... plans to go out (parties, bars, intimate celebrations, morning hangovers, resolutions-- and then (in new orleans on new year's day- it's time for cabbage and black-eyed peas- cabbage means wealth all year round and black-eyed peas are for a year's worth of health) for the rest of the world it is then done and dusted...


the holiday season is over and done with-- unless you're in new orleans.


as soon as the new year starts we in new orleans have something altogether different to contend with... the beginning of mardi gras. this year (the 24th of february) is mardi gras day. the parades begin about 3 weeks before the day itself but preparations for the day begin almost as soon as new year's is over with. mardi gras itself is sooo much fun but when you pack holiday on top of holiday it gets a little exhausting. all you want is a break from having to be around everyone you know all of the time.

ok, that's not really totally true. i love being with my family on thanksgiving. i love giving them presents on christmas. i love seeing in the new year. i love seeing my friends on mardi gras.

it all just seems (as i get older, i suppose) that it's just one thing on top of another. it all starts at the end of november and then goes straight on through until the end of february!!

maybe i am an old lady or maybe i'm just old hat at the new orleans non-stop partying and it's wearing me out. i bet you anything that when i move i'll miss it though. no thanksgiving in the uk, no mardi gras... just that week of christmas and new years. now i think that that's it's exhausting. perhaps at this time next year i'll be bored and i'll be pining for the non-stop excitement of my hometown.

i guess we'll just have to wait and see...

what a pain...

so, the countdown has begun...
soon enough i will no longer be writing from the streets of katrinaville, rather i will be writing from the streets of northeastern scotland...
of course the tone will change (not that many people will notice...) but i hope to be able to strike a good balance between what was and what will be. i hope that the few people who read this will enjoy what i have planned. i know that once i move i will have a lot more time to write (and hopefully i will soon have good news about progress concerning our move!).
i just wanted to write to let all of you know that i haven't forgotten about you but that things have been a bit hectic on my end. i promise to write more as things begin to calm down and become more settled (one can but hope).
love to all and i will write again soon.
hope to hear from all of you.
xxx
nic

The time is flying by...

So, here we find ourselves in (almost) mid-October. Halloween is around the corner (I'm already sad that I won't get to see what Meeg is going to dress up as) and fall is most certainly upon us. It's getting cooler here in the city of the never-ending blinding sunlight and daylight savings ends in less than a month. To think that this is the last Autumn that I'll spend here is a little more than bizarre. I don't know that it's really sunk in. Once Halloween hits, it's all just going to be a torrent of activity from there. Gavin's birthday, our anniversary, Thanksgiving... November is chock full of things that make the time seem to fly. Then there's Christmas and New Year. Right after that we have to finish paying for our transport and then Mardi Gras is upon us. In early March I have to apply for my visa and by mid-April I will be on a boat watching this country receed into the distance. Makes me think of all of the people I know who read this (or don't read this), the people I really write it for (when I write), my friends.
Maybe I'm just feeling sappy and sentimental but I'll miss all of my friends. Even the ones I don't see or talk to so much anymore. It's all going to change. In the blink of an eye it won't just be a function of me not seeing friends because we're all busy, it'll be a function of not seeing people because they're a world away. I know that I'm not leaving for another 5 and a half months but I'm still beginning to miss you all already.
Just wanted that out there. I know I'm leaving and who knows when or if I'll ever come back. I appreciate all of you who've been my friends for all this time. I love all of you and hope that the distance that is soon to come between us doesn't diminish the friendships that we have.
xxxxx
nic

and this is just on my block!

so, gustav has passed us by. all we ended up getting was a little water in the apartment from the rain, some damage to the outside of the house, 18 hours with no power, and tons of debris and fallen trees. could have been soooo much worse. i know that there are areas that were hit much, much harder, but we were largely spared.

here are just some of the pics i took when i ventured out into the crazy gusting winds to see what was up (seriously, i actually fell over a few times from the force of the winds).

ohhh gustav!!

seriously,
can this be happening again?
the day after i was supposed to have my birthday party a hurricane hits (wait, did we just time warp to 2005?!?).
at least this time bush made a statement BEFORE the hurricane hit. maybe fema, etc. will actually be prepared this time. who knows? what i do know is that new orleans can't afford to take another hit. we just can't. emotionally, psychologically, economically... we just can't afford it!

well, i hope it doesn't flood, or maybe that it floods just enough that fema feels it necessary to hand out some well-deserved checks. they can take the money from the money they're pouring into the war. wow, that sounds selfish AND terribly greedy. whatever, i'm bitter about my birthday. i think i deserve to be a little pouty at the moment! another birthday with no presents!! (ok, that's a lie- gavin gave me something and so did stephanie). still, this is the second time in four years!!
at least we can all take comfort in the fact that no matter how screwed we are, george bush actually knows it's happening this time. ah, how times have changed (even though i think it's just an excuse to not have to go to the convention- but whatever).

good luck to everyone and for everyone who's elsewhere- pray, cross your fingers, sacrifice goats, whatever you do... do it for us and hope that we make it through.

i'll talk to all of you on the other side!

much love,
nic

ACLU study on racial disparity in arrests in orleans and surrounding parishes. shocking? horribly, it's not.

One of my best friends, Katie, is an attorney at ACLU Louisiana. They recently did a study on racial disparity and arrests in Orleans and surrounding parishes. The results are astounding and yet not surprising. We don't just need to fix buildings in New Orleans, people!! We need to fix the way we treat each other. This city would be in much better shape if we worked together more instead of judging and fighting one another. We're all New Orleanians, we're all people. We should strive for so much more than just rebuilding, we should also strive for equality.
As a great man once (sort of) said...
A city divided against itself cannot stand!!!

From the Times Pic....


Report studies race in arrests
It sees disparity with parish populations
Thursday, August 07, 2008
By Jeff Adelson

Minorities make up 16 percent of the population in St. Tammany Parish, but they represent 31 percent of those arrested in the unincorporated areas in the first quarter of 2007, according to a three-parish study by the ACLU, which says racial profiling remains a problem in Louisiana.

The report, which studied arrests in St. Tammany, Avoyelles and De Soto parishes, calls for increased oversight of traffic stops to monitor and prevent any racial profiling throughout the state.

"The findings continue to show that racial profiling continues to be a problem," said Liza Grote, who is working on a racial justice fellowship for the organization. "The current state of the law is not getting done what needs to get done, which is racially blind policing tactics."

But the St. Tammany Sheriff's Office, which patrols the unincorporated areas of the parish, disputed the report's conclusions, arguing that more study is needed to determine whether the disparity is caused by racial motivations or other factors.

"We target people based on criminal behavior, not on the color of their skin," Maj. Fred Oswald said.

In Slidell, with a 22 percent minority population, about 34 percent of those arrested were minorities. Covington's population is made up of about 27 percent minorities, but minorities made up about 41 percent of those arrested.

Slidell Police Chief Freddy Drennan said Wednesday that he does not condone racial profiling nor does he believe it exists in his department.

"We teach (about) racial profiling in our academy and have done so since 2002," he said. "It is something that we're 100 percent compliant on. That is something that is mandatory and that they have to have before they graduate from the academy."

A Covington police spokesman said the department had not seen the study and would have no immediate comment on it.

Mandeville Police, patrolling a city with a 10 percent minority population, reported that about 11 percent of those arrested were minorities.

The study by the ACLU's Louisiana chapter took arrest data from agencies in the three parishes and compared the rate at which minorities are jailed to the percentage of minority residents in each parish. Information on arrests comes from the first three months of 2007, according to the report. The parishes were chosen to show a spectrum of rural and urban areas and based on complaints from residents, Grote said.

Grote described the practice of racial profiling as being "ineffective policing in addition to being unconstitutional."

Because of a loophole in Louisiana law, few agencies report statistics on traffic stops, preventing the ACLU from analyzing these directly, Grote said. As a result, the organization focused on arrest data in an effort to spur reform and require greater transparency on police procedures, she said.

Better policies would help "law enforcement officers be more cognizant of their actions and think more about what they're doing when they're stopping people," Grote said.

In Avoyelles Parish, 39 percent of those arrested were minorities, while they make up about 33 percent of the population. The city of Bunkie had the highest disparity, with minorities making up 80 percent of all those arrested when they comprise only 52 percent of the city's population.

In De Soto, 53 percent of those arrested were minorities, while minorities make up 42 percent of the parish population.

A state law adopted in 2001 was intended to monitor and curtail racial profiling by requiring agencies to track the race of all motorists involved in traffic stops and submit these statistics to the state's Department of Public Safety. However, the law exempts from these requirements any agency with a written policy against racial profiling, leaving it a "largely empty gesture," according to the report.

The ACLU referred to this exemption as "an enormous loophole" and notes that the overwhelming majority of agencies adopted such a policy.

St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office officials don't dispute the numbers in the ACLU's report, but said that further analysis is needed to show why minorities were being arrested at a higher rate.

What's needed, Maj. Oswald said, is an evaluation that separates arrests made because of calls to police and those resulting from proactive methods, such as traffic stops. But even those numbers could be problematic because of the Sheriff's Office's narcotics and street crimes divisions, which conduct operations largely in the parish's poorer neighborhoods, Oswald said.

These areas often have a larger concentration of minorities than the parish as a whole but the operations usually are lauded by many in those communities, he said.

katrinaville revistited

so, it's been raining quite a bit here these days (every day in fact). and lately there have been shades of katrina popping up left and right.
just thought i'd share a couple of photos that i took the other day after it rained for about an hour.
let's all just pray that this isn't a sign of things to come this hurricane season...

welcome to katrinaville revisited...

































any of this look at all familiar? there are pics i've left out of cars under water. i thought that might be a little too much.

just a reminder that the past does sometimes repeat itself.

better to be reminded than to blank it out and be taken by surprise once more...

pray (or hope or keep your fingers crossed- whatever it is you chose to do) for us all.

thanks and much love

the lost photography by nicole (AND DID I MENTION THAT I FINIISHED WRITING MY SECOND BOOK?)

so, in my attempt to consolidate all of my belongings before i move in 10 months (i know, i'm getting ahead of myself, but it's a compulsion), i went through the steamer trunk full of negatives, contact sheets, and prints that i had from the 15 some-odd years that i spent taking photographs (yes, i did exhibit. yes, people did buy my work. yes, i was paid to do portraits. yes, i was paid to do ad work). i have not done any photography since the storm, but i intend on picking it back up (actually, i've already started just a bit). writing is still my primary focus (OH, DID I FORGET TO MENTION THAT I FINISHED MY SECOND BOOK? IT'S A CHILDREN'S BOOK CALLED, "THE TALE TELLER". MY ILLUSTRATOR IS WORKING ON IT AND IT SHOULD BE COMPLETED IN TOTO SOON!!), but i will always have a keep interest in photography. having said that, i thought that i would put a few of my old shots up so that you all (all two of you who read my blog) could have a look and tell me what you think (although i have a feeling i will only get a comment from meeg- maybe i'm down to one reader!! it would certainly seem that way!).

enjoy!!

now a break from our regularly scheduled programming...

so, i know that meeg has blogged a few times (or at least once) about anthony bourdain and his show, 'no reservations'. i must admit that i used to think that the guy was a flat-out jackass, but somehow i've done a 180 and now i kind of love him. he shoots from the hip and you really don't get any bullshit from him (plus, you have to respect a guy who's willing to eat some really really disgusting things, get smashed on national television, and generally make a total fool of himself).

as some of you may know, bourdain recently made a visit down to our little town and did a new orleans episode. generally, i liked it.

i'm really pissed off that he talked to emeril though.

anyway, i think he did a good job of showing the fact that we're not back up to snuff yet, but i think that he focused too much on that. he didn't come uptown, or go to midcity, or the garden district. he didn't focus on any of the areas that are back in full swing, and doing really really well. that's ok though, i understand that people want to show new orleans as still suffering.

all in all, it was a good show. what i really wanted to talk about though is chris rose and what he said at the end of the show. i think that everyone who's lived in new orleans (or spent a good amount of time here) will agree with most of what he says. i don't love chris rose, but i don't hate him either. sometimes i think he's holier than thou, sometimes i think that he hits the nail right on the head.

in this case, i think that he really did grasp how we were all feeling at the time and how some of us still feel. here's his letter to america that he wrote right after the storm (and recited on the show)...

Dear America,
I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We're South Louisiana.
We have arrived on your doorstep on short notice and we apologize for that, but we never were much for waiting around for invitations. We're not much on formalities like that.
And we might be staying around your town for a while, enrolling in your schools and looking for jobs, so we wanted to tell you a few things about us. We know you didn't ask for this and neither did we, so we're just going to have to make the best of it.
First of all, we thank you. For your money, your water, your food, your prayers, your boats and buses and the men and women of your National Guards, fire departments, hospitals and everyone else who has come to our rescue.
We're a fiercely proud and independent people, and we don't cotton much to outside interference, but we're not ashamed to accept help when we need it. And right now, we need it.
Just don't get carried away. For instance, once we get around to fishing again, don't try to tell us what kind of lures work best in your waters.
We're not going to listen. We're stubborn that way.
You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard.
We dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we're suspicious of others who don't.
But we'll try not to judge you while we're in your town.
Everybody loves their home, we know that. But we love South Louisiana with a ferocity that borders on the pathological. Sometimes we bury our dead in LSU sweatshirts.
Often we don't make sense. You may wonder why, for instance - if we could only carry one small bag of belongings with us on our journey to your state - why in God's name did we bring a pair of shrimp boots?
We can't really explain that. It is what it is.
You've probably heard that many of us stayed behind. As bad as it is, many of us cannot fathom a life outside of our border, out in that place we call Elsewhere.
The only way you could understand that is if you have been there, and so many of you have. So you realize that when you strip away all the craziness and bars and parades and music and architecture and all that hooey, really, the best thing about where we come from is us.
We are what made this place a national treasure. We're good people. And don't be afraid to ask us how to pronounce our names. It happens all the time.
When you meet us now and you look into our eyes, you will see the saddest story ever told. Our hearts are broken into a thousand pieces.
But don't pity us. We're gonna make it. We're resilient. After all, we've been rooting for the Saints for 35 years. That's got to count for something.
OK, maybe something else you should know is that we make jokes at inappropriate times.
But what the hell.
And one more thing: In our part of the country, we're used to having visitors. It's our way of life.
So when all this is over and we move back home, we will repay to you the hospitality and generosity of spirit you offer to us in this season of our despair.
That is our promise. That is our faith.

breaking news...lenny kravitz is boring as hell

so, gavin sees a lot of celebs as he works at whole foods (and where else is a good celeb going to shop in new orleans- certainly not the one in metairie- pffftt). he told me just the other day that lenny kravitz came in the store with an entourage of skinny ass chicks (i've met him before and can attest to the fact that he goes nowhere without these, erm, lovely ladies), and (naturally) his PA. his pa went up to gavin and asked where the water was. gavin started to say that the cooler with the single bottles of water were... and then lenny pipped up with, 'no, man. i only drink room temperature water.' so, gavin showed him where that was.

in all fairness i like my water room temp, too and if i could have an entourage of skinny chicks and a PA i'd be all over it, but really! do they have to go to whole foods with you? the water ailse is a WHOLE aisle. now all of these people are too lazy/dumb to just read the big signs over the aisles? what's going on lenny. ohhhhhh, he was probably high. that makes it ok then.

shocker!!! brangelina shop for kids in nola!!!

ok, so we all know that the world's most famous for being overrated couple in the world are sometimes inhabitants of our fab-fab city. we also know that i love brad for his 'make it right' program and for all of the work he's doing in the city and for all of the positive attention he's bringing our way. what i hate is that angelina is doing NOTHING. she doesn't appear with him when he does press stuff about new orleans, she's never seen tooling around the 9th ward with him, NADA. what she does do is go out to bars (shall i mention where she can be found? i think i shall-- she loves the circle bar the most apparently) and she eats. a lot. they love to go to angeli in the quarter (they have money, you'd think that they would be able to afford better food. i guess it's a good, kid-friendly place though. anyway, it's not surprising that they blow a lot of cash when they're here. they shop a lot (don't they always).

also, they are here right now. brad's doing his 'make it right' thing and they have told everyone that they are spending the christmas and new year holidays at their home in nola. they have been seen around, so this ain't no lie. best of all, they were seen just a few days ago at a place that is very familiar to me (and should be to meeg as well given that we lived just down the street). here are some shots of the famous duo shopping at the kid's store Pippen Lane (it's right there by that CC's near where we used to live, it's in that same little shopping center thingy). it's super, super expensive (not like they care), but i've shopped there for friends who've just had babies or for baby birthdays. their stuff is fab, and if i had their money (and an ass-load of kids) i'd be all about that place.

enjoy your new toys, shiloh!!

ps- doesn't she look totally bedraggled? she needs to head across the street to belladonna for some serious spa therapy!! he doesn't look that bad, though.