Long time no

I haven't written in a long time. There isn't much to say, just more bars and smokey clothes. I drove to New Orleans last weekend, setting foot in Mississippi and Louisiana for the first time in my life. The drive was much less tedious than I would have thought, some seven hours, and much of it on old two-lane highways that pass through weird little towns. By Mississippi the leaves were out; it was green and sunny and gorgeous, and in New Orleans even more so. We ate beignets and coffee with chicory and crawfish etoufee, rode on the street car, smoked hookahs, drank... Jess and I rented bikes and took Esplanade with its curly oak trees all the way to city park, where there are ponds and swans and mossy tennis courts. The New Orleans aquarium has the most beautiful sea horse I have ever seen, the Leafy Sea Dragon, which was like a rotor-propelled piece of algae with eyes, and we watched that IMAX movie about sharks.

What else? We visited above-ground cemetaries, the oldest confederate museum, and the newly inaugurated Museum of Southern Art, which had an exhibit on Walter Anderson and a few very nice photos by Eudora Welty. We had dinner at Jacques Imo's, which I'm told is well-regarded. I ate a rabbit, and the waitress, for no apparent reason but an inspirational generosity, gave us two free bottles of wine, dessert and a round of medicinal-tasting shots for free. (Oh yeah, I started eating sweets again.)

The weather was gorgeous. I went swimming in our hotel's rooftop pool every morning. Arthur and his friends went out to Lake Pontchartran to fish for catfish (to catfish? can that be a verb?), leaving me with a trunkful of Schlitz and a new fishing rod. We went to a stripclub on Bourbon Street, which was gross, and drank a round of evil-tasting hand grenades, since for somebody, somewhere, it was spring break.

That's about it: lots of rich food, lots of drinking, lots of walking around. I think I could live in New Orleans, but it would suck being a waitress there. Also I found myself missing the smallness of Little Rock, the dankness of Pizza D's, where I know everyone and the drinks are cheap. We listened to David Sedaris on my i-pod on the way back. It was a nice homecoming; I went to sleep immediately.

Tuesday a bunch of us drove up to Fayetteville to see the Mountain Goats. I didn't watch much of the show though. It was crowded and I was in a chatty mood so I paid $8 for a concert I barely watched. There's something really cool about that town; I'm not sure what. Something about the Ozarks and the architecture, there's a Fay Jones sort of aura around it. Most of my closest friends in Little Rock lived in Fayetteville until about a year ago, so we go up there kind of a lot to visit. Going to Fayetteville generally means heavier drinking than usual at JR's Lightbulb club, seeing music of some sort, sleeping on somebody's futon and having a very hungover brunch the next day. I generally return feeling both renewed and like I'm about to die. I love it though.

Today the plan is to go see this gigantic field of daffodils somewhere. I'm not sure where. It seems like it might be a little bit late in the season though. It's been warm here.

In other news, the best books of the past few weeks have been Edisto and Edisto Revisited, by Padgett Powell. I'm in the middle of The Magus, by John Fowles, Tropic of Cancer, and a re-reading of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. The Magus has sort of taken over my life.

I also can't stop listening to Kings of Leon. I don't know what's wrong with me. We might go see Iron & Wine in Kansas, if it coincides with my trip to Chicago to return my cousin's car. EEp! car-less. But I put wheels on this Schwinn that was rusting in the backyard. It's a one-speed, which can be painful, but it's my new baby.