Bravo to Mondo Bizarro for taking a fresh look at Central City. It's impossible to ignore the poverty and crime here, but it's also important to remember that this neighborhood has contributed a great deal to New Orleans culture. Several of the placards are in my immediate neighborhood, and I plan on going out to find them, dial the numbers, and hear the stories soon.

Finally got the damned cucumbers in. My mother told me not to plant in the ground until Easter, and yesterday there was too much loud shitty rap* coming from a street party to work in the yard. I'm growing Yamato Long (a lengthy, thin-skinned green cucumber of the type I know as "English," but which I'm guessing from the name is actually Japanese) and Crystal Apple (a white, egg-shaped cuke). Also tried to grow Mexican Sour Gherkins, which look just like tiny watermelons, but found them too challenging (translation: all the seedlings fell over and died). Maybe next year. I hadn't really thought out where I was going to put the seedlings, so I just dug out and tilled a new, narrow bed about six feet long next to the Bed of Dangerous Plants (which is now a misnomer, since I've made much of it over into my tomato bed, and as George Washington Carver taught us on U.S. of Archie, tomatoes will not poison you. After that my back hurt, so I ate half a pot brownie a friend gave me last week, and it's starting to come on nicely -- that relaxing full-body high you feel in your joints and spine. Thanks, old pal, I needed that.

After reading chefcdb's most recent post, I think he needs to be clearer about the fact that, though it will feature many vegetarian options including a really brilliant tasting menu, The Green Goddess will not be a vegetarian restaurant. He had one in Athens and is an excellent vegetarian chef, but the Goddess' menu will include lots of tasty meat and seafood dishes too. Not that there's anything wrong with having a good vegetarian restaurant, but in practice, those are unfortunately so rare that the very concept will turn off a lot of potential diners. In my entire dining life, I've eaten at one great vegetarian restaurant (Pyewacket in Chapel Hill), a few very-good-to-OK ones (a swanky Korean place in New York City particularly stands out in my memory, but sadly its name does not), and several that were mediocre or below (how many ways can you serve veggie burgers and tofu bowls?). Granted, I've never had a chance to explore the wider vegetarian options of a large, more "green"-oriented city like San Francisco, but I'm always interested to see what chefs can do with vegetables/grains and have tried a fairly wide range of places, most of which disappointed me. It's a shame, because as much as I love being an omnivore, I do think that in the hands of a creative chef who knows his ingredients, vegetarian cuisine can be as interesting and delicious as any other type. When the Green Goddess opens (no, I don't know yet when that will be; keep an eye on chefcdb for news), try Chris' tasting menu and see.

*Well, mostly shitty. I admit a certain fondness for the current local bounce hit "Do the Stanky Leg," which I heard approximately 4536 times yesterday, though I still have no idea how to actually do the Stanky Leg.

I did not plant either the Madagascar bottle tree or the Confederate jasmine, but I did do some other stuff in the yard, fixed the latch on the gate leading to our alley that either a bad guy or the cops chasing him broke yesterday (typical backyard-express chase in the 'hood; no other harm done, at least not to us), took care of some eBay stuff, and mailed a small but lovely novel-finishing gift to greygirlbeast.

Tonight the Eagles play at the New Orleans Arena, and Chris and I will not be there. *KUT KUT KRI KRI*, as flemco said yesterday about an entirely different matter. I set my alarm the morning tickets went on sale, but slept through it. They were sold out by the time I got online, and we could not justify paying $195 apiece for not-all-that-great bootleg seats. I don't care what anyone says, I love the goddamn Eagles in all their cheesiness and fakeass-shitkicker glory. Chris already saw them years ago on the Hotel California tour, but they are one of the two big stadium bands (Led Zeppelin being the other) that I never got to see and would still like to.

And in the master's chamber
They gather for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast!

(Thanks to Chris, I can never hear those lines without thinking of the Frasier episode "The Seal Who Came to Dinner.")

While planting foxgloves in the garden today, I dug up a crown and a gun.



OK, the crown might be part of a gear wheel, but the gun is definitely a little handgun.

It's the mooooost ... woooonderful tiiiiiime ... of the yeeeeeeear! And it's actually cool and clear and gorgeous today, and there are Honeycrisp apples in the fridge, and our backyard fence is whole again. It even smells nice, since the workers used cedar (the original boards had become warped from spending three weeks on the damp ground and had to be replaced). Of the plants that were crushed, the passionflower vine and the esperanza look pretty crappy, but the habaneros, afforded some light and air by an unbroken strawberry jar that was also trapped underneath, were busily producing peppers all that time. Only problem is that the fence guys forgot to put up the piece of razor wire over the gate -- perhaps the easiest place for someone to jump over -- so I can't start putting our tiki stuff back out until they come back and fix that.

When the fence was first built, I planned to top it with razor wire but didn't do so on the advice of a legally knowledgeable friend who told me razor wire is technically illegal in Orleans Parish, and pointed out that police chasing bad guys across the "backyard express" could possibly get hurt by it and cause trouble for me. I was OK with this until a few months later, when several of my best tiki masks mysteriously disappeared out of the locked yard. I offered a no-questions-asked $25 reward around the neighborhood and eventually got them back from a quiet little guy I'd never seen before who came to the door carrying them in a duffel bag. Then I promptly had the fence topped with razor wire. I have no desire to cut cops (or even small-time pilferers) to ribbons, but I'll be damned if I am going to watch my lovingly collected, not-particularly-cheap yard decorations walk away every time somebody around here needs his crack money.

The current round of eBay auctions ends in about an hour. Please check them out if you can.

How did it get to be Sunday already?

I guess I must have been busy fixing the vacuum cleaner (yes! I did it myself) and setting fires in the oven (this morning I turned it on BROIL - HI to make myself a piece of cheese toast, unfortunately forgetting that the pizza box from last night was still in there. Large flames and much stinky smoke ensued. Instead of getting melted over a nice piece of whole-grain bread, my lovely Gruyère went back in the fridge to await a moment of lesser stupidity).

Currently sitting here with Chris watching the Saints try to lose to the fucking Denver Broncos. A while ago, a small parade came right past our house: two police cars, a float with royalty, music, and Mardi Gras Indians, and some second-liners trailing behind. Less than an hour later, somebody shot somebody right around the corner. The perks and heartbreaks of the ghetto ...

Which reminds me: I flamed my first anti-gun moron today. For the record, I don't think everyone who's anti-gun is a moron, but when you've got some pinhead making anonymous, sanctimonious anti-gun comments on the journal of someone who just posted about the good time he had at the firing range, it's a safe bet. It sent a shiver down my spine, and I felt that I had crossed some private Rubicon. (Chris would probably say I'd already crossed that Rubicon when he saw me drooling over sniper deer rifles in the Sunday ad supplements this morning.)

MAB: So, MAB, is that really your new name?

MAB: Probably not. Chris doesn't like it. However, he almost always calls me "Dude" or "Sir" anyway, so I don't see why he should care what my name is.

MAB: What is this recent aversion to the Internet you've developed? How did it come about?

MAB: I don't think it's specifically the Internet; I just don't seem to be in the mood for the outside world in general. I was sick a couple of weeks ago, but since I got better, all I want to do is be incredibly lazy and irresponsible. I don't look at my e-mail. I haven't read my LJ friends list in weeks -- I kind of miss it, but if I looked at it, I might have to deal with e-mail too. I deal with my eBay stuff and check in here once in a while to let people know I'm not dead, but that's about it.

MAB: Do you foresee this changing?

MAB: Well, it'll have to, won't it? If I don't start dealing with at least a minimal amount of e-mail soon, people might start calling me. But I'm surprised and a little appalled at how much my general stress level has gone down now that I'm not online several times a day.

MAB: Is this another one of your drug things?

MAB: Not unless somebody's giving me drugs I don't know about.

MAB: So what's been going on in your neighborhood?

MAB: Actually, I think that's part of it. I have finally forced all my needy, boundary-less neighbors to leave me alone and quit knocking on my door. I regret that I had to get ugly to do it -- I prefer to treat people with respect, but it's hard to keep doing that unless they afford you the same courtesy. So nobody bothers me anymore, and I think I must be reveling in my newfound privacy, just enjoying my beautiful house now that there aren't people distracting me all the time.

Also, the city knocked down the blighted house two doors down from us. Chris said he heard the workmen saying they'd found a couple of skeletons in the wreckage, but I never saw any police or coroner's cars, so I'm not too sure about that. And they evicted everybody from the crackhouse, so we're now the only people living on our side of the block. There are a couple of families on the other side, but they keep to themselves. I guess they got wise to this neighborhood a long time ago.

MAB: Any danger of "reveling in privacy" crossing the line into "agoraphobia"?

MAB: Maybe a little. I missed a couple of meetings last week, church things, because I just couldn't force myself to go. But the more meetings I attend, the more I realize I wasn't cut out for them. I don't work well in groups, even groups of people I like. Give me a task and let me do it on my own, I'm fine, but don't make me sit around a table looking at papers with a bunch of people.

MAB: Any positives to this period of seclusion?

MAB: Oh yes. The cats love it, I'm getting a ton of reading done, and my backyard looks great, except for the fact that I have an unidentified, increasingly large, bizarre-looking potted plant that may actually be some kind of replicant, and it's planting babies in all the pots around it.

MAB: Well, good luck with that. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this exclusive interview.

MAB: Does that mean I can get off the computer now?

MAB: Yes, go on back to your womb, you antisocial bastard.

My neighbors are really fucking stupid.

There is currently a sign on my door that says, in large capital letters, "DON'T BOTHER KNOCKING. SERIOUSLY. I WILL NOT ANSWER. I AM CHANGING MY LIFE AND PROTECTING MY PRIVACY. DON'T MAKE ME CALL THE COPS."

Somebody just knocked.

The trip was tremendously helpful. I cleared out all sorts of nasty, festering cobwebs and replaced them with a Master Plan for the Year. ( Possible TMI ) We did virtually nothing else active, yet managed to see five lifer birds without leaving our car. Unfortunately, the details will have to wait, since either my single (but prolonged) dip in the still-really-too-cold-for-swimming Gulf or some sneaky beachside germ has given me a vicious sore throat and muscles that feel like overcooked spaghetti.

Well, not entirely. I really did have some kind of stomach crud at the beginning of the week, but the main reason I've not been posting is because it has been creeping back. The black dog. The truth the dead know. The old bald cheater (OK, I think that one actually referred to time, but it rings true either way). The characterization of depression that has always worked best for me is "the bell jar," but while Sylvia Plath was a fine writer, she has been so unjustly diminished by her posthumous association with weepy teenage girls making half-assed razorblade scratches on their wrists that her excellent and apt phrase seems hardly worth mentioning. That's still what it feels like to me, though. A layer of glass -- thicker at some times, thinner at others -- that descends over you and cuts you off from the world, muffling the things that once seemed important, the things you need to hear and the things you try to say, layering you off from what once gave you pleasure and sustenance.

I stopped taking Cymbalta a couple of months ago now, I think, mainly because Augie had gotten sick and the vet bills were murderous and I never was sure whether the shit was doing anything anyway. When I stopped, though, I asked Chris to keep a close eye on me, and if he thought I was sinking badly enough that I needed to start taking it again, he should tell me.

Yesterday morning, he told me. I refilled the prescription. Unsurprisingly, it still costs a fortune ($127 for a month's supply; no generic). The kind folks who offered to help subsidize my brain chemistry needn't send money, though; people have been very generous with donations recently and we are doing more or less OK. Besides, I don't even know if it will help, and I don't suppose I'll ever really know; for me, depression (though often extenuated by factors such as catastrophic levee failures, pet deaths, etc.) seems to be a chemical thing that comes and goes at will. Things can be awful and I'll weather it surprisingly well. Things can be fine and suddenly life looks like a big pile of shit. I never know when, how, or why. Right now I'm just doing what Chris tells me because I don't know of a better alternative.

(I do not feel in the least suicidal, and am going ahead with my plans to purchase a gun and learn to shoot. In fact, that's one of the few things I feel genuinely interested in right now.)

The only reason its arrival comes as a surprise this time is because I guess I mistook my acceptance into the Catholic Church for some sort of Get Out of Depression Free card, which was foolish, but I've been riding so high and feeling so much better since then that I just kind of went with it. I mean, why wouldn't I? However, I have come too far and put myself and my loved ones through too much worrisome bullshit to let this turn into another long downward slide. I'm taking the stupid Cymbalta. I'm going to Mass and trying to help with the movement to save Our Lady of Good Counsel, though I feel like deadweight in that respect. I'm not eating much, I admit, but I'm forcing myself to keep weightlifting. I'm hoping the trip to Grand Isle next week will clear some cobwebs out of my head.

I also have an Unofficial Birthday Crawfish Boil to attend tomorrow, which is a bright spot.

That is all for now. You may commiserate if you wish, but please, for the love of God, no ADVICE.

[Addendum: I have banished all the "peeps," a.k.a. neighbors who ask for sandwiches, codranks, and such. If you are not a delivery person, a cop, or a friend I'm expecting, you are not allowed to knock on our front door. If you do, you will be ignored. If you do it repeatedly, I will set off the burglar alarm. I regret having to adopt this scorched-earth policy, but if I don't stop hearing that tap-tap-tap (which is usually more like BANG-BANG-BANG) on my door repeatedly each day and night, I'm not just going to be depressed; I'm going to have a nervous breakdown that may result in a machete attack.]

Some stressful and logistically demanding shit going on today that I can't really talk about. Sorry to be all mysterious, but I wanted people to know why I may not get to answering urgent e-mails, thanking kind folks for donations in Augie's memory, etc. for a little longer. (I did get all the eBay packages sent out.) Don't worry; it is nothing Chris and I can't handle. Just some people who decided to fuck with the wrong people.

Now you're messin with a
A son of a bitch
Now you're messin with a son of a bitch
Now you're messin with a
A son of a bitch
Now you're messin with a son of a bitch

-- Nazareth (duuuude!!!)

Speaking of being all mysterious, there's also a lot of positive and intriguing Save Our Lady of Good Counsel stuff going on, and we think we have an excellent chance of staying open, but I can't talk about most of that either. Very frustrating for a compulsive blogger.

So yesterday I had a sign on the front door that said my cat had died and not to bother me for any reason. Nonetheless, I became obsessed with the fear that somebody was going to jump the neighbor's fence and knock on my bedroom window. In some kind of fugue state, I covered both bedroom windows with a heavy layer of aluminum foil and duct tape. (Been hitting those good old benzodiazepines pretty hard, which I guess could have had something to do with it.) The cats were mystified and annoyed because they like to watch pigeons on the next-door roof through those windows. When poor Chris woke up this morning, he was so disturbed by the unfamiliar lack of light that he stumbled into the living room and fell back asleep in his recliner. I woke up around noon, thought it was still the dead of night, and was scared not to see him in bed next to me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to make our bedroom as black as the grave."

"It's pretty depressing, dude."

This afternoon I peeled off all the foil and duct tape. It made two big wads about the size of soccer balls, which now sit in the mudroom, waiting to go out to the trash when the rain slacks off some. Except for the absence of Augie, the bedroom is normal again.

Here is something that pisses me -- and apparently a lot of other people -- off about the co-opting of Christianity by right-wing evangelicals. It's the National Day of Prayer, which sounds like a nice enough idea on the surface, but it turns out that only Christians need apply -- and on top of that, only "Christians" who fit the Focus on the Family's definition: "Applicants must indicate whether their lives reflect a belief statement that begins: 'I believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God.'"

No. The Bible is the frequently errant Words of a bunch of guys. Maybe God told them some of it, and it is a beautiful book regardless of whether you consider it fiction or nonfiction, but it was still very clearly written by a bunch of guys. James and Shirley Dobson can suck my sweaty balls, one on each side.

I was invited to a crawfish boil today and really wanted to go, but woke up with a bum right leg that wouldn't stop raving and whinging even after five Ultrams and the heating pad. Fucking thing. Later on it eased off a bit, but by then Chris had already taken the car to work, so I messed around in the backyard, chopping weeds with my brand-new hedge shears and thinking of the most horrifying scene in King & Straub's Black House; hanging a couple of new bird feeders; planting some kind of shrub called Esperanza Gold Star, which is supposed to have "clusters of showy, fragrant yellow flowers summer to frost." (I'm hoping we won't have any freezes next winter; my gingers did OK in the last few, possibly because I covered them, but my habaneros are only just now showing the feeblest signs of coming back.) And then just sitting on the back steps, watching the perfectly ordinary yard birds -- sparrows, house finches, cardinals, mourning doves, the occasional trouble-making blue jay. And of course the "street eagles" (pigeons), who amuse me by crowding in and covering the biggest feeder so thoroughly that you can't even see it.

Milton brought me the Esperanza Gold Star plant about three weeks ago, as well as a baby fig tree and a baby orange tree with delicious-smelling blossoms, heaving them into my yard in a grocery cart before I knew what was going on. I don't even want to know what nefariousness resulted in Milton gifting me with trees. Normally I turn people away if I suspect the stuff they want to give or sell me is stolen, but in this case there seemed little chance of returning the trees to their rightful owner(s), and I didn't want to just let them die. Ah, well. There is an abandoned nursery in the neighborhood where plants still grow. Maybe they came from there.

If you can stand a couple more Our Lady of Good Counsel videos, I think these two are very good.

Another one from nola.com

By reader Sarah Elise Lewis

For interested parties, my current round of eBay auctions ends tomorrow afternoon. That first-edition hardcover of Swamp Foetus -- a real rarity -- is currently priced at $76, and from what I've seen online and in convention dealers' rooms, it would be a bargain at twice that price. So go getcherself a bargain, and help this precious boy. Shameless, I know, but the situation is what it is, and right now it's pretty damn sucky.

Dear Neighbors:

1. I'm sorry if your crappy New Orleans public school education did not equip you to read the sign prominently posted by our door that says DO NOT KNOCK BEFORE NOON. However, it is well known in the neighborhood that we are night workers and day sleepers. Unless my house is on fire, which it was not this morning, do not BANG ON MY FUCKING WINDOWS 5000 TIMES STARTING AT 9:30 AM HOLLERING "MISS POPPY! MISS POPPY!" If either Chris or I had been able to wake up sufficiently, we would have blasted the shit out of you for this. I'm sorry you didn't have food for your baby. If you cannot provide for her on a regular basis, perhaps you should have used birth control should avail yourself of the many programs that are available to feed children in New Orleans. We don't have much in the way of social programs, but this is one thing I know we do have. If you had managed to get me out of bed at 9:30, do you really think I would have jumped in my car and gone tootling happily off to buy you baby food? (Because I'm a soft-hearted idiot, I did buy you some baby food when I made groceries later, but if you had waited until a decent hour to ask me, we both could have avoided the embarrassing lecture I was compelled to give you.)

2. Please learn sufficient English to understand the words "We have no extra money right now." I'm not talking about Mexican/Central American contruction workers (none of whom has ever asked me for money anyway); I'm talking about people who have lived in New Orleans all their lives. Yes, if you're hungry and I have stuff to make sandwiches, I will make you one. If you're really hungry and I have no sandwich stuff, I might even take you to Rally's if I can afford it. I'm tactful enough not to tell you how much I have spent on vet bills this week, but I know you know what "house payment" means. I don't secretly have a stack of twenties somewhere that I roll in, giggling evilly, after you leave empty-handed. No, if I tell you I can't give you any money, that does not mean I can use my card to purchase a bottle of gin that you can trade for a week's rent. It's called a debit card. That means it is not a magic one I can use to make stores give me things even if I have no money in my bank account.

3. Do you see how Chris goes off to work every day and comes home 12 or 14 hours later looking exhausted? Why do you think he should forfeit the pay from two or three of those hours to pay for your rent/groceries/drugs/debt you idiotically ran up with a loan shark who's going to beat the crap out of you if he doesn't get his money by tonight? At least you acknowledge that Chris does work; you don't go to his restaurant and knock on the kitchen door demanding that he stop what he's doing to deal with your needs. I know you cannot really understand what kind of work I do, but you still need to realize that it is work. The fact that I do it at home does not mean you get to ignore my I'M WORKING -- PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB sign to ask me for money, food, or (my favorite) a ride across town. If you ignore it, I will ignore you. If I'm working in my bedroom and you jump the neighbor's fence to BANG ON MY BEDROOM WINDOW because you can see a light back there, I will call the police.

This neighborhood breaks my heart. I hate that people live this way even though I know many of them have, at least in part, brought it upon themselves. God knows I understand addiction and sympathize with it. I feed people when I can, and help them out in other small ways. I even prepared tax returns for two of them, and have been rewarded by them constantly bugging me about when their refund checks are going to come (because obviously I have a psychic link with the IRS). But neighbors, I'm REALLY FUCKING SICK OF YOU TODAY, and if you know what's good for you, you will give me some space.

No news yet on Augie's lab results. I've received a few worried calls and e-mails, so please don't worry that I am going to do anything rash like have him euthanized out of worry for our other cats. I know a great many cats have been exposed to coronavirus, and I know most of them never get sick. I appreciate the worry, though; better you should err on the side of caution and tell me these things in case I didn't know.

Just woke up from a lovely nap long and relaxing enough to let me stay up and spend the rest of Chris' night off with him. Of course, needing to nap may have had something to do with the fact that when I finally managed to pick up my Tramadol (generic Ultram) prescription, I took three of them and the last of the Nurofen (ibuprofen with a touch of codeine) a friend recently brought me from England. I can't believe I walked around London with a sore back for two days in 2004, never knowing this miracle drug was available.

I can never think of anything to do for April Fool's Day except put salt in the sugarbowl, which is fun since Chris takes milk and sugar in his coffee and I don't, but it gets old after 19 years. For us, today's date means we have been living in our house for exactly a year. Given some of what we've experienced in the neighborhood during that year, it seems an appropriate anniversary in many ways. It was a steep learning curve, but it's getting better. For us, anyway. Milton came staggering by last night and told me he hadn't eaten anything since I gave him an apple and a Rice Krispie Treat on Saturday. I had no sandwich fixings, so I treated him to Rally's, then got him a few groceries at Rite Aid. There are still new heartbreaks every day, and probably will be for a while yet. (Yes, we have food banks, but they seem not to take into account that a lot of people have nowhere to heat or prepare food; I've seen their boxes, which include rice, canned soup, boxed mac'n'cheese, and other things that require at least a hotplate and a source of clean water.) After visiting our accountant today, Chris and I celebrated the fact that we would be getting a fairly large tax refund by going to Drago's in Metairie for charbroiled oysters. I was halfway through dessert -- an ice-cream sundae with mountains of whipped cream -- when Milton's hungry face floated into my mind and made me feel like Mr. Richpigge.

Oh, and fess up: who was the tall man reading one of my "murder books" (I think that meant a horror novel) who knows me and Chris well -- in real life or from our blogs I couldn't quite ascertain -- who recently met my accountant on a flight from Houston to New Orleans?

I just sent the following e-mail to one of my favorite Times-Picayune editorial writers, Jarvis DeBerry.

Dear Jarvis,

You may remember me -- I sent you a Barnes & Noble gift card a while back. At that time, I was living in a temporary apartment on Prytania Street after we lost our Broadmoor home to the failure of the federal levees. I've since bought a house in Central City.

Man, I had a lot to learn when I moved here. I do not regret it, but the learning curve has been steep. We are the only white people within about three blocks in any direction. There are a few older homeowners around, but most of our neighbors are desperately poor renters, squatters, and semi-homeless people. They are mostly kind-hearted and even protective of us. They are also junkies and crackheads. When a white, middle-class person hears the word "crackhead," he tends to automatically think "criminal" and then "bad person." Many of us have known someone who had a pill problem or even heroin, or have had these problems ourselves, but I've met virtually no white people who had any contact with crack or its effects. It has an evil mystique that transfers itself to its users. Most if not all of my neighbors have indeed been to jail, but they are not bad people -- they are only hurting and desperate. In many cases they are hungry and living without electricity or water. I give them sandwiches and cold drinks and help them out a little when I can. If they choose to spend it on drugs, I don't begrudge that; I am not one to criticize anyone else's high, and I am hardly pure in that respect myself (but that's another story).

The system has failed these folks, and past a certain point, they have also failed themselves. It makes me sad, but sometimes it also makes me angry -- not on behalf of myself and certainly not on behalf of white people, but on behalf of all the people who endured horrors in Selma and Birmingham and Neshoba County and so many other places so that everyone could live more freely, and also on behalf of those of us who want to help drag New Orleans back from the abyss. None of my more transient neighbors has ever exercised his or her right to vote. Only one of them, a sweet, badly abused lady in her mid-forties named Sharline, can read on more than a rudimentary level. Some of them are very smart and have skills like electric work, landscaping, professional cooking, etc., but their drug habits prevent them from using these skills to help themselves. Everyone is hustling and/or jonesing all the time. Having lived here just under a year, we have already known two people who died drug-related deaths -- one a shotgun murder, one a 32-year-old OD whose funeral and second line we attended earlier this week -- and seen a young man wounded by gunfire right in front of our house. I have never felt afraid for myself; they are the ones in great danger, not us. I will never leave New Orleans, but I often despair for it.

I asked [the editorial page editor] if I could do a semi-regular column called "The View from Central City," because I truly don't think most T-P readers have any idea what goes on in Central City. To them we are just a series of violent squibs, head-shakes, and turning the page over their morning coffee. There is no knowledge and no outrage. However, there wasn't room on the editorial page. I guess I am writing to see if you would consider turning your attention to this neighborhood on occasion. I know I've never liked it when people tried to tell me what I should write or even made suggestions, so please feel free to ignore me or tell me to mind my own business, but I sure wish someone would do it. I am just coming out of a long morass of physical pain and severe depression, and I hope I will be able to write about this myself eventually, but as of now I've written almost nothing for 18 months -- perhaps it is good that I didn't get to do the column, because I might have been unable to live up to my commitment, and having made my living as a writer since 1991, I would have been deeply ashamed of that.

Anyway, I hope I haven't bugged you. I realize I may be spouting cliches that you, as a black writer who often addresses race, will have heard a million times. At any rate, I think you have a valuable voice and I hope one day you will consider using it on behalf of Central City. I would be happy to speak more about this at any time.

Yours,

Poppy Z. Brite

A) Despite my having requested the refill two days ago, my orthopedist has not yet refilled my Ultram prescription.

B) I am willing to try going off Ultram, but I know from experience that it will give me horrible restless-leg syndrome (GOD, why couldn't they have come up with a less idiotic-sounding name for it?) that is even worse than the sciatic pain itself. Fortunately, the doctor at the spinal clinic where I got the steroid injections gave me a prescription called Requip that is horribly expensive, but works wonderfully for RLS. Unfortunately, I am almost out of it, the doctor won't be back in the office until Tuesday, and of course there is no one else who can call in the refill. I'm down to trying the homeopathic RLS remedy a friend sent me (no offense, Friend Who Sent Me Homeopathic RLS Stuff, but I've never tried a homeopathic remedy that had any discernible effect).

Dealing with this kind of FUCKING DOCTOR BULLSHIT is the reason I started buying pills on the street in the first place. I don't care. I will not return to that. I will suffer the torments of hell before I return to that. Very likely they'd just bring me Tylenol, heart medication, or even Rolaids and say it was Ultram anyway. I'd estimate that about one out of eight pills people tried to sell me was the genuine article. "It's the generic," was always the standard response to my demurral. Um, yeah, except I KNOW WHAT THE GENERIC LOOKS LIKE, and it isn't pink, chalky, round, and three-quarters of an inch in diameter. I may start a virtual band called The Fabled Generic. Green Cap Mother is already my virtual New Orleans funk band, so I guess The Fabled Generic will have to be my virtual '70s-style pop band. (faustfatale, we will be your new favorite band!)

I do have a 200-mg. extended-release Ultram prescription from a good doctor stashed away for emergency purposes, but it is even more hatefully expensive than the Requip and I'm trying to avoid using it unless I really have to.

Fuck. You don't care about any of this, nor should you. I'm just venting. To cap off this lovely day, I reluctantly took my ring in to be sized on Tuesday because I didn't want to wear an ugly plastic ring sizer on it for the rest of my life. They told me it would be ready today, but every time I call, a rude woman who apparently has no regard for the large sum Chris spent there tells me it isn't ready yet. I NEED THOSE SAPPHIRES LOOKING AT ME, making me be good. Why the goddamn fuck do people not do what they say they're going to do?

[Addendum: I just called to harass the jewelry store again, and the nice man who made the ring and sold it to Chris promised me it would be ready for 5:30. There's one thing, anyway.]

Just finished making and eating (with Chris in front of the basketball game) a crawfish stew with okra, potatoes, and Louisiana crawfish tails from Pat's of Henderson. I generally don't even bother cooking with crawfish tails unless I can find Pat's. They are of the highest quality, packaged with the most fat I've ever seen, and of course they are a wholly Louisianian product.

I spent most of today in reflection following a funeral and second line for our friend Chop, Tomato's brother, who got some bad drugs (or too many good ones) a couple of weeks ago, spent a week on life-support, and was eventually declared brain-dead and unplugged. He died at age 32. Chris (chefcdb) has already started an entry that will surely convey the sorrow and beauty of the day better than anything I can cobble together, but I have a few additions of my own. The Mass is more comforting to me than ever, but I had absolutely no idea how hard this particular funeral would be to get through. A) I've been to funerals for friends who died far too young, but never before one who essentially died by his own hand. B) I kept thinking of the times I spent with Chop, a good-looking and good-hearted young man who made bad choices, and how unnecessary and wasteful his death had been. C) I kept thinking, "I could have done this to my family. In a half-assed way, I think I was trying to do this, if not to them, then to myself." Or as Chris and the Skull & Bones gangs put it, "YOU NEXT."

The second line, though, was a beautiful and comforting thing. The brass band and the funeralgoers followed the hearse down to Louisiana Avenue and S. Liberty (a cross street that Chris pointed out was poignantly appropriate), then saw the family off to the cemetery in the limo and danced back to the church, Holy Ghost on Louisiana. I spent the rest of the day sore, but it was worth it. I should add to my last post that I am still taking Ultram, a very mild narcotic painkiller that controls the sciatica fairly well, but which I am able to use medicinally since it's almost impossible to get high on. I also reserve the right to visit my orthopedist or accept small gifts of stronger painkillers from friends in the future, during really bad spells, but I am out of the street market, which was degrading, time-consuming, and brought danger upon my home and family. Whoever paid for the drugs that sent Chop into a coma -- whether he raised the money himself or somebody gave it to him -- essentially killed him. I know that the money I used to pay people for their Vicodin and such often went to buy other, even stronger drugs, and I can never again be party to that.

On Friday I worked a seven-hour shift at Our Lady of Good Counsel's St. Joseph altar, running out hot food to the servers, keeping cake and cookie plates replenished, picking up dirty cups and plates, taking out trash, and doing whatever else needed to be done. I was on my feet almost the whole time and only took one short break to have lunch with Chris when he came by on his way to work. I have no idea where I found the stamina to do this, but it proves one thing I've always suspected about myself: I can only dedicate myself to hard work for love. Back when I worked at jobs where I was actually getting paid for similar labor, I didn't give much of a shit if the food got served, the customers were happy, or things were left undone at the end of the day, which is probably why I got fired from almost every "legitimate" job I ever had. Similarly, the few writing jobs I've taken on primarily to make money (e.g. the Courtney Love bio) have produced work in which I take no pride, although I am proud of some of the things I was able to do with the money I made (e.g. taking Chris and my mother on a trip to Australia).

Yesterday Chris and I visited altars, but I was tired and everything seemed weird because it wasn't really St. Joseph's Day (remember, the Vatican moved it from March 19 to March 15 this year so it wouldn't fall during Holy Week), and we only made about four. After having done almost everything one can do in connection with St. Joseph altars -- visiting, making cookies, making food, putting up the altar, and actually helping to serve the meal -- I think I like working behind the scenes best. It's a lot harder than putting on a nice outfit and driving around to visit other people's altars, but it's also more gratifying. Next year Chris and I may both work the OLGC altar instead of making our usual visiting rounds. (Besides, I also noticed that several of the ladies who worked last year have gotten too old and/or sick to do as much this year; if there isn't an infusion of younger blood, the tradition will eventually die out.)

I have had to harden my heart to the neighborhood folks. We have tried to be good friends and neighbors to them, and as a result, most of them treat us like human ATMs. Chris doesn't have to put up with quite as much of it because he's not home as much as I am, but it has become obvious that they don't respect my privacy or my work, and yesterday two of them disrespected our religious holiday as well, expecting us to drop our plans and give them rides all over creation. I suppose that's what galls me the most: their attitude that their time is more important than ours and that we now owe them money, favors, and food because we have tried to be kind in the past. It's difficult for me to harden my heart because I know how little they have, but to some degree, that is a result of choices they've made. At any rate, this shit is over, and if we become the Asshole White People as a result, so be it.

Wow, my wireless connection is working all the way back in the bedroom for the first time ever.

Too bad I have nothing of substance to say (when didja ever let that stop you, Brite, har-har?).

Second known-person death since we have been in the neighborhood: Tomato's brother, Pork Chop (no, I do not make up these names). He was found slumped behind the wheel of his truck last night. At first they thought he'd had an asthma attack. Later it turned out he'd gotten some bad drugs -- or possibly too much of some good drugs -- and the people he did them with hauled his unconscious body out to the truck and stuffed him in there. He's now on a ventilator at Touro Infirmary, very likely brain-dead. Like Tomato, Chop contained the remnants of an intelligent, talented, personable man who could have made something good out of his life, but I don't know if either of them has/had enough remnants to do anything useful with. This neighborhood is full of anti-role models for me. After St. Joseph's Day*, my life is going to change radically. I only hope I can make it through that change. There are worse things than spending your life in pain: e.g. hurting the people you love, making them worry all the time, and destroying their respect for you.

On a completely different note, Angus Lind wrote a nice story about my friend Ti Martin and her cousin Lally Brennan, both of Commander's Palace/Cafe Adelaide fame, and their new(ish) cocktail book in today's (now yesterday's, I guess) paper. I haven't been drinking much lately and I've never cared for sweet drinks, but I have to admit their Sidecars and Whiskey Smashes are exemplary.


*By Vatican decree (ugh), St. Joseph's Day is on March 15 this year because March 19 falls during Holy Week and feast days cannot be celebrated then. It feels all wrong to me, like the time in Chapel Hill when they changed Halloween from October 31 to the Saturday nearest that date and I (8 or 9 at the time) refused to observe this heresy and had to go trick-or-treating all alone on the real Halloween night. Nonetheless, I've already spent two afternoons helping to make hundreds of Italian cookies, and will help the ladies cook altar food on Wednesday, help run hot food from the kitchen to the servers at Our Lady of Good Counsel's altar on Friday (held that day because the St. Patrick's Day parade passes the church on the 15th), and visit (I hope) nine altars with Chris on Saturday. I don't know if I have the stamina to do all this, but I have to do it anyway because I need to ask St. Joe for a lot of help in the coming year.

My sainted former landlord, Joseph, had organized a lovely dinner party for me and Chris. But as things were getting started, I saw Jack Leonardi, the "chef" from Jacques-Imo's, coming in with a case of beer. "I'm not going to break bread with that motherfucker," I thought, and made to leave. Chris wouldn't come with me. The house had grown several extra levels, and as I descended to the last one, a bunch of cool kids and Goth girls began to mock me, calling me "heroin kiddie" or "Heroin Kitty" (a play on Hello Kitty?). I realized I had a machete in my hand and began to attack them, making several bloody slashes in their backs and shoulders, but they only kept laughing at me. Then Chris and I were at the beach and all the people from our current neighborhood were standing out in the water, looking toward shore, as scores of dead fish floated in. We wanted to go somewhere else, but I was afraid the people would drown as the tide came in; however, I knew I could do nothing for them.

Have fun with it.