Yesterday's blog entry was canceled due to one Wild Turkey and three Pimm's Cups, all consumed during a lunch date at Galatoire's with my friends Kenneth Holditch and Marda Burton, authors of the wonderful New Orleans restaurant book Galatoire's: Biography of a Bistro. Other than attending their book party there a couple of months ago, I hadn't been to Galatoire's for more than thirty years. I tend to feel that present-day enthusiasts of old-line New Orleans dining split off along two lines: Galatoire's or Commander's Palace. Of course there are the renegades who prefer Arnaud's, Broussard's (hi, Harry!), Brennan's, or even that sad old grande dame Antoine's, but most often it seems to come down to Galatoire's or CP. I remain firmly in the CP camp, but I can see how the Crabmeat Sardou (creamed spinach, artichoke bottoms, vast amounts of lump crabmeat, all blanketed in an exemplary Hollandaise) could seduce one. The service is wonderful too, as long as you take the waiters' advice instead of trying to order from the menu.

Dr. Holditch was a good friend of Thelma Ducoing Toole, the mother of John Kennedy Toole, to whom we owe the publication of A Confederacy of Dunces. Yesterday he gave me a hardcover copy of Confederacy signed by Mrs. Toole. I started bawling right there at the table and still cannot believe I own this treasure. Have you ever read King's Needful Things? It eventually devolves into kind of a clusterfuck (I hate books where everything just burns up at the end; it seems like such an easy way out), but there are good things in it, most notably Polly Chalmers' struggle with hand-crippling arthritis and the concept of the thing each person longs for more than any other thing in the world. Not a concept like true love or great sex or world peace, but the actual object you most covet. I've long thought that my Needful Thing would be a copy of Confederacy signed by Mrs. Toole. Here's hoping Leland Gaunt doesn't show up threatening to take it away unless I vote for Bush, or something.

This morning I took Chris to the airport for a week-long visit with his mother in the Pacific Northwest, then comforted myself with my once-a-year disgusting-delicious McDonald's breakfast, a sausage & cheese biscuit and hash browns. Some people turn to chocolate ice cream and the like for their comfort food, but I've always preferred salt and grease. Visited the Asian Gourmet Market in Kenner, then drove home feeling sorry for myself and getting teary-eyed over a ferchrissakes BeeGees song on the radio. Now I'm drinking 6-hour-old coffee reheated in the microwave. I make a terrible bachelor.

I picked up the new Borderlands anthology, From the Borderlands, today. Just read the following in Tom & Elizabeth Monteleone's introduction:

We also received far too many stories that were obviously rejects from other "theme" anthologies looking for material around the same time as we ... [O]ur personal favorites were all the stories featuring that ethereal libation, absinthe -- these tales usually followed a relentless plot that went something like this: drank some absinthe, had some sex, killed somebody. Can you say stunted imagination? We thought you could.

Of course, the absinthe rejects may have the last laugh, since those of us who did sell stories to Verte Brume are beginning to wonder if the goddamn thing is ever coming out.

Oh, and hey, Gambit Weekly readers have voted me #2 for Best Local Author, just ahead of Andrei Codrescu and right behind some spooky lady who doesn't live here any more. This annual poll is mainly a measure of who/what people have heard of -- for instance, no locals eat at the Court of Two Sisters, but it made #3 for Best Outdoor Dining because people know it has a lovely courtyard -- so that's cool.

Dammit, this is typical New Orleans bullshit: you go to the School Board candidates' forum you've been looking forward to for weeks, the one with Sandra "18" Wheeler Hester, and the thing's been cancelled because only one candidate (Jimmy Fahrenhonky) showed up. Now what am I sposta with my evening? Work?

To those who were confused about my addendum earlier: I do have a story, "Four Flies and a Swatter," in </i>Verte Brume</i> (which I'm sure really will come out one of these days). I do not have a story in From the Borderlands, nor did I submit one. I haven't submitted anything to the Borderlands series since "The Sixth Sentinel," which appeared in Borderlands 3. No real reason; just haven't had anything that seemed right for them, and am unlikely to now (though you never know with short stories).