nola, day 2

I'm in New Orleans because I wanted to lick my arm and taste salt. I wanted eye contact from everyone I walked by. I wanted places with pasts, vibrant seething humanity, hot days wilting into hot nights. and I wanted, NEEDED, a break from everything about seattle... bless her heart.

-evacuation route, broadway street, uptown.
-random shotgun. I noticed today that nearly all the homes have open 'basements'- the houses are about 2' off the ground and suspended with bricks. I never noticed this before (5 years ago). maybe it's always been this way, maybe it's a citywide code after Katrina, but i find it interesting. lots of people store pet carriers under there, I've noticed.
-amazing antique mirror.
-Canal & Decatur.
-beaded fence, Magazine St.
-Audubon Park.
-they just throw oyster shells onto the sidewalk. this is in front of a random house uptown.
-cool fence.
-this house is for sale. it needs work. it is poetry. I have no idea how much they're asking, but it's somewhere on Magazine.
-my hotel has mirror-ceilinged elevators! like you haven't done this, or wanted to. jeez.
-I don't even know what this building is, but it's right at the end of Canal and I love it for its ambitiously dated weirdness.
-Jackson Square. yeah, the obligatory shadow shot. while I was taking this I heard two different people say "woah, look at that shadow!" fuck it; I said something similar the first time I saw it too.
-one of the cemeteries at the lakeside end of Canal St. the gates were locked. I'll be going back.
-more sexy flora at Audubon Park.
-the guy who makes these signs is named Simon. he's an old white dude who reminded me of Tommy Chong. he had a bulldog named Lily who was thankfully in air-conditioning. seriously: how can you fucking own a brachycephalic breed in this climate?
-yeah!
-used mattresses that have been sweated on, anyone?
-in a window in the Quarter. made me happy.
-like a MOSS!
-barbed wire and beads: all's you need to know.
-this, sadly, was some friffy lady-garb place that I didn't go into, but it was a cool sign.
-at the place with Simon and the bulldog.
-I took one of the emails but I haven't checked it out yet. these were on lightpoles in a five-block stretch uptown. someone has an idea they believe in...

"for example, I used to do a joke about how no one wants to be an organ donor. then I'd slip in, 'what if you came back from the dead and now you have no eyes?'" -Chris Rock