i went to a part of the city i never go to this morning, to meet a guy off craigslist about a butcher block thing. As i left the house i had a moment of panic along the lines of, 'what if he clubs me over the head and locks me in his storage unit?'. Woke up one of the roommates to tell her where i was going, just in case. Her room connects our house to the front door (it's a classic new orleans shotgun apartment). When i knocked on her door, she jumped out of bed in a flash and ran to the front door because she thought it was UPS with her new verizon iphone and she's been waiting for it like a kid on christmas morning.

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I hadn't been out to that part of the city in years... As I drove, I thought of a memory for almost every street from here to the bridge. Desire (like the streetcar). Alvar (bad writer i dated for five seconds. can't ever pass the street without checking for his truck and wanting to duck out of sight). Poland (the place with the great seafood that has the sister restaurant in Waveland, where we had the frosty giant goblets of beer after a long hot day at the beach with the oil rigs in the distance).

Over the bridge everything thins out. The area got 10 feet of water, but now it's hard to tell what is just typical urban southern decay and what was thriving before the Katrina floods. Regardless, it's a wasteland and I fought back tears as i drove past street after street of empty homes. I always wish for some artistic gift to capture what it is, but it's just not possible. And if it was possible, everyone's hearts would be broken

12:08 p.m. - 2011-02-08