I'm home, have been home for a few days but haven't felt like posting, in part because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say about Grand Isle. We had not been down there since Hurricane Gustav made landfall very close by last September. Couldn't go for a while because the island was closed except to residents and service personnel; then you could drive onto the island but none of the hotels was back open yet; then the hotels began to reopen but Chris was unemployed and we were broke; then, finally, we went.

We saw Grand Isle not too long after the double whammy of Katrina and Rita, and the structural damage was appalling. This was worse. This changed the shape of the island, changed the configuration of the beach. I had read that much of the beach sand washed into Highway 1 and they had to bulldoze it back. Reading about this and seeing it are two very different things. They bulldozed what they could, but a lot of the sand is just gone. A lot is gone in general. Chris and I have been going down there for, what, five or six years? In that short time -- infinitesimal time, climate-wise -- much of the grassy marshland that flanked Highway 1 between Leeville and Port Fourchon has been replaced by vast stretches of open water. A little more land is gone every time we make the drive, but this time, the loss was dramatic and soul-sickening. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't have the heart to and doubted I could capture the scale of the loss anyway. You'd need satellite views to even begin to communicate it.

By no purposeful design, but simply because I'd begun to start thinking about Dead Shrimp Blues, the book I happened to be reading when Katrina hit was Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell. This book describes the possibly unsolvable problem of Louisiana's wetland loss -- a loss that will impact the entire country in more ways than I can list here -- in the best, most readable detail I've found. I'm less than thrilled about some of Tidwell's post-Katrina writings, but I do believe he is in our corner, and Bayou Farewell should be required reading in schools across America.

Anyway, yeah, the fact that we didn't get the relaxing vacation we'd hoped for is kind of beside the point. We were happy to make our little contribution to Grand Isle's economy, and we still love it, and we will return. But I'm beginning to wonder if we might actually be the last generation that gets to treasure this beautiful, wild, demanding place.

Since our somewhat subdued return, I've kept busy nurturing cucumber and tomato seedlings and making this hangy doodad for the garden:



The lines, by Dylan Thomas, read "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower / Drives my green age." I've always liked these lines and their imagery, but just lately the green fuse is right up in my grill every day and I'm reading them in a whole new light. The slate is from the roof of our old house, the one that got destroyed when the levees failed. I'd like to make more pieces like this, maybe even do some custom work if anyone was interested, but I only have a couple more pieces of our Napoleon Avenue slate and I'd like to hang onto them. It may be time to start haunting salvage yards.

Also, mainly because I'm still amazed to know photography has advanced to the point where a genetically crappy photographer like me can now capture an image like this, here's a shot of the Mabel Orchard Spider who has set up housekeeping between my foxgloves and my red salvia:

... that I am a self-centered hermaphrodite who lives primarily in the moment, but often maunders about the past. I doubt this will come as a surprise to most of you.

( Click if you care )

In other news, we're going down to Grand Isle for a couple of days next week, just to get away before Chris gets totally caught up in the madness of his new restaurant. We haven't been down there since Gustav, which did severe damage to the island and many of its structures, but my soul has been aching for it.

I have been too selfishly absorbed with our own situation to mention that I am very worried for Grand Isle. We've only been going there for five years (admittedly, one of them was a doozy) and can already see much larger areas of water in the marshes and wetlands than were there in 2003. Gustav could conceivably make landfall there, and I wonder how much will be left.

Something interesting I've been meaning to share ever since we returned from Grand Isle. One of our many pleasures down there is reading the weekly newspaper The Lafourche Gazette, which serves a multitude of little bayou towns: Mathews, Gheens, Lockport, Valentine, Larose, Cut Off (Bobby Hebert's hometown!), Galliano, Golden Meadow, Leeville, and Grand Isle. I always enjoy reading the local papers when I go somewhere else, but The Lafourche Gazette in particular is a window into a whole different world that isn't very far from ours geographically, but is lightyears away in other respects. An front-page story titled "Feds Get Earful from Hearts of Citizens," though -- a writeup of a public hearing on the environmental impact of deepwater oil leases -- shows that we do share many things with the bayou folks, even if they express them differently. The following isn't a quote from someone within the story; it is the reporter's own narrative:

People down here are tired of the feds taking and taking without fixing what is damaged in the taking. No one showed up [the hearing was attended by only about 20 citizens] because they don't think their comments will do any good. If we were a Third World country, however, the feds would be kissing our butts to get what we have.

Indeed. You won't find these sentiments couched so baldly in the Times-Picayune (except maybe in the context of an editorial), but we've all felt them. I applaud The Lafourche Gazette and reporter Alces P. Adams for putting it out there with no bullshit-flavored icing.

I roused myself from my continuing languor long enough to post some new eBay items. This week's batch is a Chapbook Extravaganza!!! (I think it is illegal to type "extravaganza!!!" without putting three exclamation points after it), and some fairly rare ones too: the long-out-of-print Pansu and R.I.P. (my "tribute" to William S. Burroughs), a copy of Used Stories, and an extremely rare hardcover first edition of The Seed of Lost Souls.

I just ... don't ... feel like ... doing anything. I'm not sick anymore; nor do I feel depressed, but still, all I want to do is lie in bed and read and take naps with the cats (and with Chris, when he's around) and occasionally wander around the backyard filling the bird feeders and enjoying the blend of tiki-ness and nautical flotsam and New Orleans memorabilia (not to mention all the plants I haven't killed, which is still a novel experience for me. My ginger is flowering!). I don't answer the phone. I don't answer the door. I don't look at the Internet. I haven't been to Mass. I arose briefly on Tuesday to greet Chris' sister, Julie, who was in town for a convention, but I truly don't remember the last time I left the house. It's been nice. I just want to be quiet.

Maybe I have finally destroyed my brain. If so, life feels much more peaceful without it. I feel a little like Clarice Starling in the last section of Hannibal, though no one has drugged me (except myself, a little, but nothing unusual).

Well, the new Audubon Insectarium opens to the public today, and I've just got to see that, so I guess I'll be leaving the house sometime next week if not sooner. Insect cuisine! You bet your maxillae I'll try it.

I must admit, though, that agoraphobia has its seductions.

I'm sorry I've been inactive on therealpzb in its infancy, and will do my best to remedy that soon.

Oh, and I believe I have made all my birthday thank-yous (those who haven't received them should check their mail soon) except for a copy of The Penguin Book of Nonsense Verse that arrived with no indication of who had sent it. Thank you, anonymous nonsense-verse-giver. We read some of the poems aloud on Grand Isle, which added to the merriment of our stay.

Nice dinner last night with theferrett and zoethe, whom I'd previously only "met" online. They'd been to Commander's Palace the night before (without me, since they had a party of seven and after a precious meal in San Francisco totally wasted at a shitty Middle Eastern place on Haight -- trueheart, cheekytubemouse, tjcrowley, and postmaudlin will remember this -- in 2004, I promised myself I would never attend another clusterfuck dinner, which I define as a party of six or more, and I never have), so I thought they might like something more casual, decided to show them a different part of the city, and took them out to the lake, where we ate fried artichoke hearts, boiled crawfish, and various other seafood dishes at Deanie's (which I still like despite the detractors because it is one of Buddy D's spiritual homes, and besides, all the West End seafood restaurants I really loved are gone forever). theferrett appeared to be hypnotized by my method of peeling crawfish, sucking the heads, and squeezing the tails, much as I might be if I had the chance to watch a native in the African bush preparing locusts or something. After dinner, I gave them a mini-disaster tour of Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward. Very much enjoyed meeting them, although I felt I already knew them from reading their extraordinarily candid journals all these years. I hope they felt likewise.

I've found myself not wanting to write about the trip to Grand Isle, because it was an oasis of peace for us and whomping up a blog entry that would distill it into 500 words (or whatever) feels too much like work. (God forbid!) But, since someone asked, the five lifers we saw were the Sooty Tern, Black-bellied Plover, Wilson's Plover (with a family of peeps!), Solitary Sandpiper, and Long-billed Dowitcher.

I have eBay auctions ending this afternoon/early evening. Remember, this is the Official EEK! I Thought I Had Like $1500 In Checking And I've Only Got $600 Memorial Day Sale, so check 'em out and please bid if you can. Also, therealpzb seems to be taking off well; there are some interesting discussions going on over there.

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.

Sigh. I just called the vet and made an appointment to get Frankie fixed on Monday. This should have been done ages ago (he's ten months old and has great big bouncing cojones), but first I didn't do it because Augie was sick and I didn't want to separate them for even a day, and then Augie died and I just couldn't bring myself to turn loose of Frankie knowing he would have to be anesthetized. Gotta be done, though. He hasn't started spraying -- in fact, I've never known an Oriental Shorthair to spray -- but I suspect the macho pheromones he's emitting may be responsible for all the unauthorized peeing and pooing that has gone on around here lately.

Also just made reservations for my birthday trip to Grand Isle week after next. Our usual hotel is booked until next year (! -- it's an apartment-style hotel, and apparently some corporation has put up all their people there, the lucky bastards), so we decided to stay at a place closer to the bridge, on a wilder part of the beach. When we stayed there once before, we would float on our backs in the water as Brown Pelicans dipped down to check us out and Magnificent Frigatebirds soared and swirled far above. I need to cleanse my soul with some Grand Isle time; it's been far too long ... in fact, we haven't been there since my 40th birthday last year, when the picture in my icon was taken.

Oh, and reader Leah H. asked if I would help spread the word about The Cat House on the Kings, an amazing but underfunded no-kill, no-cage cat sanctuary in California. Happy to. (I sent them $25 myself -- wish it were more, but our own vet bills have been crushing lately. I also just discovered that my printer seems to be dead, but I can't get too upset about that, as I've always hated it and have been waiting for an excuse to buy a new one.) Here's the video her brother-in-law made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwM6f0liHpo#GU5U2spHI_4

My favorite line: "Basically, it's like Planet of the Cats." I know the feeling.

This has seemed one of the longest days of my life. Chris left for work about a hundred years ago, I think. Since then I have read, dozed, struggled awake from nightmares, sweated and thrown off the heating pad, wondered if I would ever again have any strength in my legs. I think it is coming back a little, though I have just swallowed my last two pain pills and tomorrow may be worse.

On the night of my fortieth birthday, Chris and I sat on the beach at Grand Isle and I told him I was no longer proud of anything in my life except my relationship with him. He was disturbed by that, and I don't blame him now, because it isn't quite true and would be a terrible burden on him if it were. I'm not sure I can honestly say I am proud of the work I've done -- I still love it, but how could I be proud of it and let it slip away from me so easily? Anyway, it may return -- I hope it does -- but it's gone for now and I will no longer tolerate people trying to push it on me or advise me about it. I'm maybe most proud of having a talented, kind husband who loves me deeply and has stuck by me for eighteen years, through many times when I definitely didn't deserve him. I'm proud of the recognition he has deserved for many years and is receiving now. Chris is and will always be the king of my life. However, I'm also proud of having two parents who love me, and whom I love and admire. Sometimes when I mention to an acquaintance who doesn't know my mother that she is coming for a visit, the acquaintance winces in sympathy, as if a visit from one's mother is a thing to be automatically dreaded or, at most, tolerated. I am sorry for people whose relationships with their own mothers have made them assume that everyone feels as they do. I've had some of the best times of my life with my mother and hope to have many more. I don't see my father as often as I'd like even though we live in the same city, but I feel that we've grown closer as we both aged and have realized that, despite superficial differences of circumstance and opinion, we have many important things in common and enjoy each other's company a lot. And I am proud of having several dear, brilliant, talented, huge-hearted friends, both here in New Orleans and around the world. Without all these people, I very much doubt that I would have lived through the past two years, which otherwise seem to have been made up of fear, uncertainty, sorrow, pain, and near-madness. The ones I haven't specifically named here know who they are, or at least I hope they do (I fear some of my friends may not know how much I care for them because it has been so long since I was able to enjoy traveling or even going out on the town; I hate thinking they may have taken my rejection of a social life as rejection of them), and I thank them.

I have two main stories of mud in my life. The first happened in 2001, when J.K. Potter was still living in New Orleans. He and Chris and I were down on the batture (the strip of land between the levee and the river) at the Fly, the little recreation area behind Audubon Park. We were "making land," J.K.'s term for throwing sticks into the muck at the river's edge, and I think he took some pictures of me, too. (In fact, now that I think of it, my Prime author photo might've been taken that day.) Then J.K. and Chris walked a little ways off for some reason, and I ventured a little too far out into the muck and mire and began to sink.

"Help," I called -- softly, because I was embarrassed. "Help." I kept saying it, but I couldn't seem to make myself raise the volume any.

After a while they heard me and came hurrying back. The mud was halfway up my calves by then. Chris ran around in circles screaming like a little girl while J.K. leaned over and lifted me out with a giant sucking sound. One of my cowboy boots stayed in the muck, but I was able to hook it out with a stick.

The second happened in 2004, when Chris and I were on one of our trips to Grand Isle. We spent one day driving around the mainland area, Cocodrie and Chauvin and eventually up to Pointe-aux-Chenes, a remote bayou populated by Cajuns and Houma Indians, many of whom still speak French. We stopped at a marina there and I bought a net and a lure. I don't really fish, at least not in any generally understood sense of the term, but I have a fetish for the equipment. Seeing my purchases, the marina's proprietor -- who had just come in on his boat -- asked if we wanted some fresh fish. According to Chris, I said, "Sure! My husband's a chef, he'll know how to fix 'em!" Me, I don't remember one way or the other, though I admit I said yes.

Anyway, the guy gave us a box of eleven or twelve still-flopping sheepheads (a.k.a. black drum), which we put in the back seat of our car. Half a mile or so down the road, Chris started complaining that sheepheads were full of bones and a pain in the ass to clean, that he didn't have any good knives with him, that he hated them and didn't want to cook the damn things. We decided to stop and dump them into the water, thinking maybe they would still live. We made our first stop on the bayou near a house, but the first couple of fish out of the box floated on their sides, single eyes gazing up at us accusingly. At that point we figured their chances were not good, and we didn't want to dump a dozen dying fish under somebody's dock, so it was on down the road to a deserted part of the bayou.

When we found one, Chris hauled the box of sheepheads out of the car and down to the water's edge, where he shook them all out and hollered, "Good riddance, you fuckers!" Unfortunately, the bank of the bayou was deep, black, soft, rich mud, and it had begun to suck him in while he was absorbed with his sheephead exorcism. Struggle as he might, he couldn't get free, and I couldn't reach him. So I found a rope in the trunk, tied it to the car's rear bumper, backed up the car as close to the bayou as I dared, tossed the rope to Chris, gunned the engine, and yanked him out of there like a cork out of a wine bottle. I don't think I have ever heard him curse quite as long or as thoroughly as he did the whole time this was going on.

Since he was covered in filth to the knees -- shoes, socks, and pant legs a homogenous mass of sticky blackness -- I drove the car on down the bayou a little, looking for someplace he could clean up. (We were too embarrassed to go back to the marina.) Eventually we found a little country store run by a Houma man who wouldn't let Chris come inside, but allowed him to rinse off at a sink on the porch.

We never did get any fresh seafood that day, and later that night Chris had the only attack of Catholic guilt I've ever seen him experience (he was raised in the Church, but is decidedly lapsed). He raved about how wasting life and food was a sin and, I believe, nearly cried over those dumb sheepheads. I finally managed to reassure him by telling him that Bald Eagles, which live in the Pointe-aux-Chenes area, prefer eating freshly dead fish to catching their own. It's quite likely that his (he would say my) sheepheads fed an eagle, and if not, they certainly fed some other birds and probably many assorted critters.

Of course, to this day, I can't resist showing Chris pictures of sheepheads and saying, "Does this remiiiiiiiind you of anything????"

We ate weenies and birthday cake, saw families of Willets and Clapper Rails (the rail is a bird of many rich brown shades, but the chicks surprised us by being jet black -- they looked very much like ducklings that had been dipped in ink), got looked at by four Magnificent Frigatebirds, talked to a gift shop owner who said, "I'm not racist or anything, but them niggers up there ... " (I always long to tell such people I'm part black, but I don't think anyone would believe me; I did tell him we live in an all-black neighborhood and love it), saw a lifer (a first-year male Orchard Oriole), got caught in a cold needling rainstorm on the state park beach a mile from our car*, saw two gorgeous Roseate Spoonbills (they've become much rarer in the area post-K), and, of course, found lots of lovely filth. You can see some of it in my new photo set, 40 on Grand Isle.

While I enjoyed the trip, I felt much more homesick than usual and think it was probably too soon after moving into the new house to go on vacation. I love Grand Isle, but I never quite stopped wanting to be home, in my house, in my yard ... freaking out that something bad was happening at home (fires, burglars despite the alarm, cat destruction, etc) ... worrying that the plants were getting too dry ... thinking about what I'd be doing if I were home at that very moment. Just before dusk today, I sat on the back steps watching birds at our feeders, and I heard a distant lone trumpet playing "Just A Closer Walk With Thee," and I felt I never wanted to leave New Orleans again.

Thanks for all the kind birthday wishes, gifts, and greetings. I got a nice card from Clare Davis, who says the flamingos she sent are called Jack and Wendy, after the Torrances from The Shining. I just hope one of them doesn't bash his way through the back door saying "Heeeeeeeeere's Johnny!" -- an iconic bit from the movie, but one I've always found gratuitously silly, perhaps because I love the extremely non-silly novel so much.

I've got some new eBay auctions up: a set of antique leather ankle restraints (don't ask!), copies of The Seed of Lost Souls and Are You Loathsome Tonight? (the limited hardcover signed by me, greygirlbeast, and Peter Straub), and, most importantly, my mom's nearly-new MacBook, which she bought in September but has since decided that she doesn't like Macs or notebook computers. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this machine, which retails for $1099, and I think my reserve price of $600 is a very good deal; you can also Buy It Now for $800. Since it doesn't seem to be showing up on my store page yet, here's a direct link to the auction. Please help a poor little old lady on a fixed income get a computer she loves!


*This was painful at the time -- the temperature dropped fifteen degrees in just a few minutes, and the raindrops, which Chris says were hailstones but I didn't see them, hit hard enough to really sting. In retrospect, though, it was a powerful experience: we could see the storm sweeping in across the Gulf, and we were the first thing it hit since its genesis off the coast of South America (or wherever). I've never seen or felt anything quite like it before.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Grand Isle, and when we return, I will be 40. I'm quite excited about it (both the trip and the milestone birthday).

We always stop on the way down at Spahr's, a seafood restaurant in a little town called Mathew where we order crawfish stew, catfish piquante, and catfish chips (very thinly cut pieces of fried catfish), as well as a couple of their "famous" Bloody Marys. Then we continue on down the road, and once we cross the drawbridge at Lockport, I truly feel that we've entered another world. As soon as we've checked into our motel, I run down to the beach. Our traditional first-night dinner on the island is weenies, potato chips, and beer, usually consumed in front of a TV basketball game.

I'll try to collect more flotsam and jetsam (or, as Chris calls it, "filth") than usual on this trip in hopes of incorporating it into the backyard. That yard is really becoming an obsession with me. Another tiki arrived yesterday, and I hung him up above my radishes. I've added yet more pictures to the photo set (I'm too lazy to link, but there's a link to it in my last entry). Birds have begun coming to the feeders. I could spend much of my life back there if the heat and the occasional rap music blasting from a rear neighbor's yard didn't drive me inside. (I like rap, but I don't like having other people's music forced on me.)

Goodbye for a few days, and thanks for all the wonderful birthday presents, wishes, and contributions to the Gold Tooth Fund (I honestly didn't think I would get any!). Think of me on Friday at 4:55 PM CST, my natal hour.

Well, my ambition is partly fulfilled. I wanted to be rid of all the boxes by my birthday, May 25. There are still boxes, but none in the living room/dining room, kitchen, or bedroom, the areas where we spend most of our time. I think I would have gotten it done, but I became sidetracked with the yard. Next week will be mostly idle as Chris is taking me to Grand Isle for my birthday. We went last year for his, so there's a nice symmetry to this trip ... plus, as much as I am loving fixing up the house and yard, I'm also exhausting myself and probably need to do nothing for a few days. On the actual night of my birthday, I'm going to make Chris take me to The Lighthouse, a restaurant I inexplicably love even though everything we've eaten there has been mediocre to gross. Grand Isle is one place we don't go for the food; other than a decent shrimp po-boy at a little place called The Starfish, I don't think there is a good restaurant meal to be had on the island. We stay at a motel that has little self-catering apartments with rudimentary kitchens so we can cook most of our own food.

I broke a tooth on a pretzel rod the other night. Fortunately, it's one I had root-canaled several years ago, so there's nothing left to hurt, but it's all jagged and irritating. I think I am just going to have the whole damn thing yanked out -- it has given me nothing but trouble for ages now -- and get a gold tooth. I've always wanted one, though I expect it's going to be expensive. If anyone wants to give me a birthday present but doesn't like any of the items on my wish list, I will also accept contributions to the Cats Fund earmarked "Gold Tooth." In gratitude, I shall have the names of all donors engraved on the tooth in microscopic print. And I swear to God that is the last fortieth-birthday pimping I am going to subject you to.

Speaking of birthday gifts, though, I'm having an awful time keeping mine straight ... Clare Davis kindly sent me a pair of pink yard flamingos (not directly tiki, but de rigeur for any self-respecting tiki paradise), but used my P.O. box as her return address, or else the company that sent them messed up the addresses, so I can't send her a thank-you note. If you see this, Clare, thanks for contributing to the paradise! And who sent me the copy of Lynda Barry's The Good Times Are Killing Me? I read it a couple of nights ago and it was as fabulous as Barry always is, but I've no idea whom to thank.

I bought more plants today: four young habanero peppers. This gardening thing is getting out of control. Oh, and I added a few photos to the Tiki Paradise set.

After I posted the picture of Gideon, a couple of people asked about his ear deformity. He developed hematomas in both ears (not at the same time) and had to have them drained and stitched up. We call him a "Double Crumplehorn." I don't think it diminishes his good looks, though.

At age 40, or damn close to it -- and nearly eighteen years into a relationship you know will last the rest of your lives -- love is not Valentine hearts and passionate declarations and flavored lubricants and angst. Rather, it is sitting at your favorite sushi bar and hearing Jim Croce's somewhat cheesy but really quite lovely "Time in a Bottle" come over the sound system, and your eyes meet, and you know you're both thinking the same thing, and you zone out and don't realize for several minutes that the sushi chef is talking to you.

On a sort-of-related note, this year's Rex made the (awful if you think about it) toast to his queen, "May this be the best day of your life!" The girl is 21 or 22. Being Queen of Carnival is surely magical in many ways, but one hopes it isn't all downhill from here for the poor thing.

Anyway, I started trying to figure out what had been the best day of my life, and I came up with September 30, 2003, for which my journal entry reads:

Really nice day yesterday. The first sentence of LIQUOR reads, in part, "It was the kind of October day for which residents of New Orleans endure the summers, sparkling blue-gold with just a touch of crispness," and that's the season we have entered now. Chris and I drove across the lake to Abita Springs, where we visited the amazing UCM Museum, a place that's nearly impossible to explain or describe, but that you should certainly visit if you ever get the chance. We had dunch (my word for a meal eaten between or in lieu of lunch and dinner, superior in every way to the loathsome brunch) at the surprisingly good Abita Brew Pub, then raced back across the Causeway at sunset to attend a debate between Rosalind Peychaud and Jalila Jefferson, two State Representative candidates who do not represent our district and for whom we are not qualified to vote, but we wanted to see them anyway. I believe this officially qualifies us for political junkiedom.

Nothing to it, really; just a day we spent together that was good in every way. I suppose I was also thinking about it because Chris and I haven't seen enough of each other lately, or at least haven't had much time to just hang out; he's been working a lot, I've been doing things at the new house, we're both tired, and we miss simply spending idle time together. I'm looking forward to enjoying the house, but I also hope that before too long -- maybe for my actual birthday -- we can take a few days to go to Grand Isle. That is the place where we live wholly in each other's pocket 24 hours a day, with not even a cat or four to take up the space between us in bed.

Pictures from Grand Isle and Port Fourchon. As I wrote to greygirlbeast earlier (having reread her Low Red Moon there), "Part of its beauty for me has always come from a subtle but deep sadness I feel there. I don't know if it is the pull of the sea (something I've not felt anywhere near as strongly elsewhere) or the hardscrabble life led by many of the islanders or just the harsh gorgeousness of nature or what, but for me it is not just a fun place to party on the beach; it's a place that calls to my blood." These pictures cannot wholly convey that, but I hope they give you a glimpse of it.

Tired. Sunburned. Many disgusting cat messes waiting to be cleaned up. Grand Isle is battered, but standing; in some ways it looks better than New Orleans. Let's see if I can make a complete list of birds we saw:

( Grand Isle/Port Fourchon bird list, cut for people who care not for the avian )

The Marsh Wren was my only lifer, but I got a better look at the catbird than I'd ever had before; it was kind enough to give me a protracted flash of its distinctive rusty ass. Having flipped through my books to compile the list, though, I find myself disillusioned with my big Smithsonian Birds of North America. I used to use Stokes' Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region as my car book, but it was lost in the storm and I recently replaced it with The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. The Smithsonian book is a dictionary-sized volume that contains much more detailed species accounts than the smaller books could, but its pictures are simply not as good as Sibley's. David Sibley is apparently a sort of savant who burst upon the birding scene with no ornithological training at all, magically able to paint these amazing, personality-laden birds.

Anyway. Those messes await. Here's a reader question I received today from David N.:

Do you have any rituals you perform before or after you write?

Nope, no rituals. To each his own, but I find it helpful to demystify the writing process as much as possible: no lucky sweater, no mumbo-jumbo, no talk about The Muse. If you let yourself rely on this kind of stuff for the magic, it becomes too easy to make excuses for not writing. Well, I do have an old sweater of Chris' that I fancy makes me look "literary," but sometimes I write in it and sometimes not. I don't consider it a talisman or anything.

Oh, and I got a South Lafourche Tarpons T-shirt (Bobby's alma mater) to wear in my Waiting for Bobby Hebert author photo. I know you care deeply.

Chris and I have decided to go down to Grand Isle for a couple of days next week. The community was hit hard but is recovering as best it can. The most catastrophic flooding came from the back bay (the stretch of water between the island and the mainland), so our motel on the beach is still there and open for business. The Sureway grocery store is open and I have heard that the Starfish restaurant is open during the day. That's all I know. "Things look a little bit different," as Ms. June told me when I made our reservations, but as with every other place we love, we have to go see for ourselves.

This means I have to get the Soul Kitchen copyedits done by Monday and try to see Krewe du Vieux on Saturday night, but it's worth it.

I'm already thinking about what I will read on the trip. I've learned the hard way that a book can make or break a vacation, especially in a place like Grand Isle where there's not much to do at night. On one trip down there I had the perfect book, Christopher Cokinos' Hope Is The Thing With Feathers. On another I had just the wrong one: something called The Anthropology of Turquoise, which I foolishly assumed to be, well, the anthropology of turquoise, but which turned out to be 200-odd pages of some woman's well-written but ultimately dull maunderings. I may take Caitlín's Low Red Moon to reread; it has always reminded me of Grand Isle even though it has nothing to do with the Louisiana Gulf coast. It makes me feel the same way Grand Isle does, if that makes any sense.

Oh, and a couple of nights ago I put cherry-red streaks in my hair. I've had this hair color so many times over the years, off and on, that it feels like the closest thing to a natural color I can claim. (My real natural color, a vague dark auburn, doesn't seem nearly as much "mine.") The pictures we took don't show the color all that well, but I'm posting this one anyway because it cracks me up. That's a kumquat, in case you were wondering.

The Soul Kitchen revisions are done. Tonight I just have to finish putting together the doodads (dedication, acknowledgments, notes to the copyeditor not to change "sous chef" to "sous-chef," "neutral ground" to "median," etc.), then e-mail it to my editor and agent.

Although it's only been a little more than a year from when I wrote the first sentence (in a motel room in Grand Isle) to when I gave it the final tweak (here in this apartment), this novel has spanned more changes in my life than anything else I've written with the possible exception of Lost Souls. I'm very proud of it, but I will be very happy to finish with it.

Quote of the day, heard while driving up Royal (not Bourbon) Street with the window down:

GUY WITH MIDWESTERN ACCENT ON CELL PHONE: It's the Big Easy! ... I'm on Bourbon Street! Do you know what Bourbon Street is? ... It's where you go to get drunk!

You know, it's even kinda good to see the idiot tourists coming back.

I thought bawling over "Free Bird" while drunk on Halloween night was my low point, musically speaking, but today, stone-cold sober, I confess I got more than one tear in my eye when "Seasons in the Sun" came on the car radio. Well, what can I say, it reminded me of Grand Isle.

So far, I'm not wild about Ian McNulty as the Gambit's new restaurant critic -- Lilette is a "French-Italian hybrid"? Who knew? -- but he has a really good opinion piece in today's Times-Picayune. This is what I've been trying to explain to people for years: yes, New Orleans is a fun place to visit, but even prior to the hurricane, it was not an easy place to live, which is what made "The Big Easy" such an idiotic nickname and one never used by locals. (Not to mention that no one anywhere in Louisiana has ever talked the way the characters in that movie did, with the exception of the cameo by former New Orleans DA Jim Garrison, who had an actual New Orleans accent).

It's difficult to explain just why this has been one of the best three-day stretches of my life. We didn't do a great deal on Grand Isle. We walked on the beach watching pelicans do kamikaze dives and plovers run on their ridiculous, skittery little legs and dolphins play in the surf. We ate, for the most part, indifferent food. (Perhaps someday my dear husband, the chef who should know better, will learn not to order menu items that make the waitress hesitate almost imperceptibly and then say with a shade too much hearty enthusiasm, "Oh, it's good, it's good.") We watched mindless TV and talked a lot and got sunburned and took pleasure in sleeping with no cats between us.

As we left the island yesterday, the only blemish on my good time was that I had not seen a roseate spoonbill. Most birders seem to have a Holy Grail, a bird they'd like to see more than any other, and this is mine. I had been tantalized by a picture of one on an "Identify These Species" sign near a boardwalk that went out over the marsh. I saw every other bird on the sign -- the cranky great blue heron, the exhibitionistic tricolored heron, the ungainly white ibis, the dirt-common but still gorgeous great and snowy egrets. I even saw a glossy ibis, which wasn't on the sign and which I'd never seen before. No spoonbill, though. Chris comforted me by saying we'd go to White Lake in Vermilion Parish, an area well known for spoonbills, on our next vacation. But I felt strongly that spoonbills were in the area, perhaps even rising up from the marshes and mocking me as soon as I turned my back. "Who's afraid of the big bad doc? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" I cried a little tear as we drove over the bridge that connects Grand Isle to the mainland, both because the beach had made my heart lift and I was sorry to be leaving it, and because a spoonbill or two would have made a near-idyllic trip absolutely perfect.

We stopped for lunch at a marina in Port Fourchon, a "Kajun" restaurant called Toupsy's. Our other meals in the area had been less than spectacular and I didn't have high hopes for this one, especially when the food took 45 minutes to emerge from the kitchen, but the jumbo lump crabmeat in my salad was as fat, sweet, white, and beautiful as any I've tasted. We left the restaurant in fairly good spirits and continued our trip home, but we hadn't gone more than a mile or two before something large and pink sailed low over our car.

"Chris," I said, then could only gesture wordlessly as the bird landed in the salt marsh nearby.

Once we had pulled over and I had gone bounding down Highway 1 with my binoculars glued to my eyes, I was able to see that a flock of at least five or six roseate spoonbills was fishing in the marsh. At first they were far away, but clearly visible. Gradually they worked their way closer to the road until finally one glided right over our heads. The sunlight shone through his bright pink feathers and turned him into a gaudy vision, a fiery Technicolor idol. We watched them for about an hour, standing oblivious in the afternoon sun until we were nearly as pink as the birds. I don't think I stopped grinning the rest of the way home.

The Buddy D roast last night was a good time too -- though whoever decided alcohol shouldn't be sold there deserves the Moronic Decision of the Year Award -- but even Buddy cannot hold a candle to my beautiful spoonbills. If I should happen to die any time soon, take comfort in the knowledge that I'd achieved at least one ironclad goal in life: to see the roseate spoonbill in the wild, soaring pinkly.