Things I think you should do in the French Quarter

Once again, I have been lured away from the YA I'm writing right now and back to ma blog to address a request. It seems that a number of my dear friends are visiting New Orleans this fall and need suggestions for things to do. Well. WELL.

Anyone lucky enough to be heading to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras can go armed with the sage knowledge I provided in my Mardi Gras Do's and Don'ts post, but what about folks heading to the Big Easy for the other forty-someodd weeks of the year? Don't worry. I've got y'all's backs with some hot picks from a former NOLA resident.

The French Quarter is only six blocks by thirteen blocks, but most people have a hard time remembering to go anywhere else when they come to New Orleans. There's just so much to do! French Quarter residents have reported to me that they've literally gone six months without leaving the bounds of the Quarter. So without further ado, I present to you:

QuidQuid's French Quarter Picks

FANCY FOOD

My pick: Galatoire's Restaurant


photo credit: jussissipi's flickr

You have to eat some French Creole food while you're in New Orleans. You just have to.

Maybe it's because it's the first place I ever ate in New Orleans, I don't know. There are a lot of fancy historical French Creole restaurants in the French Quarter--Antoine's, Broussard's, Tujaque's--but Galatoire's is the spot as far as I'm concerned. This is French Creole cuisine at its finest. I'd recommend something on the menu, but why bother? Chicken Clemenceau? Poisson Meunière Amandine? Close your eyes and point at one. It's all incredible.


I don't even know what this is and I'd eat it

It's expensive, but hey, this is the Fancy Food section! It doesn't' matter how much you spend, anyway. You will walk out of that place feeling like you should probably just Lieutenant Dan it into the Mississip' out of pure prandial delight. Just don't forget to have a cup of the turtle soup au sherry before you go.


NONFANCY FOOD

My pick: Verdi Marte


photo credit: melinnis's flickr

Sandwiches are a very important part of New Orleans cuisine. You've got your muffulettas, of course, which can only be purchased at Central Grocery. If you need a burger, you head to Port of Call. But far and away the most important sandwich in NOLA is the po boy. It's a sub sandwich done as only New Orleans can do it--on halved French bread with incredible fillings like fried shrimp, roast beef, or even french fries.


photo credit: Ryan Boren

If you need a po boy--and believe me, you need a po boy--you need to take yourself to Verdi Marte. You're going to get there and say Are you kidding me? but trust me. This is the best fast food in the city. It burned down a couple of years ago, but it's cool--Verdi Marte is back and better than ever. So go get you some.

You should probably also have breakfast at Mother's on Poydras (just outside the Quarter), lunch at Angeli on Decatur, and cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde across from Jackson Square. You're going to need to eat a lot while you're there.


JAZZ CLUBS

My pick: Snug Harbor



Sort of like you're going to need to eat a po boy, you're also going to need to see some jazz. Even if you think you hate jazz. Trust me. There's nothing quite like sipping a cocktail and listening to a little bit of jazz in the midst of your crazy New Orleans night.

The best jazz bar ever ever ever was Funky Butt, which, unfortunately, never reopened after Hurricane Katrina. It was dark and full of couches and shadowy nooks, the music was always hot, and the bartender Wheaties knew how to keep a glass full of Funky Butt Juice. Funky Butt was my go-to French Quarter hotspot. New Orleans perfection. RIP.

With Funky Butt dead and gone, I must send you all instead to a very different establishment: Snug Harbor. Snug, along with The Spotted Cat, is on Frenchman Street, which means its actually just outside the French Quarter in the Faubourg Marigny. But trust me, it's still the place to go. While four hundred tourists try to climb into Preservation Hall, you'll be up on the second floor with plenty of elbow room and a bird's eye view of the best jazz musicians in New Orleans. Charmaine Neville plays here on MONDAY nights, if that gives you any idea. Just look at this schedule. Definitely worth checking out any night of the week.


BARS

My pick: Chart Room (300 Chartres St)



If you are looking for a bar in the French Quarter, my friend, you are in the right place. You can't swing a whatever in New Orleans without hitting a bar.

First up, you have to walk down Bourbon Street and see what's up. Marvel at the flashing lights and all the drunk people. It's like an R-rated Disney World. If you want to party where your loved ones can keep tabs on you, go to Cat's Meow, which has a live streaming webcam of the karaoke stage. Take advantage of the lack of open-container liquor laws: buy a daiquiri or a hurricane at an open-air bar and then just walk back out with it to the street. I once--and this is 100% true--bought a frozen daiquiri in New Orleans so large that it came with a commemorative plastic tub and neck strap because it was too heavy to carry unassisted when full.

But when you're done with all that mess, check out one of the more chill bars. Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar is (arguably) the oldest bar in the US. Hookah Cafe on Frenchman is now The Hookah on Decatur, but I bet it is still an excellent place to smoke hookah and get your drink on. I really adore Chart Room, a small rowdy bar on Chartres I love going to with my pal Karen. It's straight up French Quarter--open to the sidewalk, big beautiful bar, cheap drinks. It's an old familiar favorite.


THINGS TO DO

Food and drinking is enough to keep a person entertained in the French Quarter pretty much indefinitely, but I guess if you get bored with that somehow, you could...

Go shopping! Hit the French Market, or the antique stores on Royal Street. Be sure to stop by Fleurty Girl--I love their shop on Oak Street Uptown, and I bet their new Quarter shop is amazing too! If you're going to buy any souvenirs, do it at Fleurty Girl and support a very cool local business.

Get pierced! Rings of Desire might just be the best piercing parlor in the country. Elayne Angel, the master piercer, has pierced over 40,000 people. She has hands so gentle a person can barely feel a thing. And she's trained a whole team of amazing piercers to give the same kind of care. These people specialize in serious piercings, and they're they only people on Earth I'd ever trust to pierce my goodies with metal if I ever decided to go that route. Just don't try to do it drunk--they will not go near you if you are.

Go to high tea! After you get your goodies pierced, head over to the Ritz-Carlton for high tea. I can't explain it, but there is something really fun about doing something so proper in the City That Care Forgot.


Have fun!!!!



Discussion Question: What's the most fun you've ever had in the French Quarter?

My Own Private Lilith Fair

It's only life after all

It was the late 90s and I was a child of Lilith Fair.

It was a great time for female singer-songwriters. My CD tower toppled with titles like Little Plastic Castle, Under the Pink, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, and This Fire that spun on constant rotation on my 3-CD changer. If it had sandals, an acoustic guitar, and a vagina, I was listening to it in 1998.

So you can imagine my reaction when I learned that the next assembly at my Tennessee high school would be an Indigo Girls concert.

In an unprecedented move, the Indigo Girls decided to kick off their summer 1998 tour with a tour of Southern high schools. I've never understood why. But I didn't care why. I just knew it was going to be the best day of school ever.

When the fateful day came, I was ready. I picked out the perfect outfit: my offwhite Lilith Fair t-shirt from summer 1997, a floor-length maroon hippie skirt, Birkenstocks, and the pièce de résistance: a crown of maroon flowers for my head that I made myself out of an embroidery hoop and fake flowers from Michaels. I submit the following photographic evidence, taken that very morning:


Lanier and I pose like this in most pictures

I sized myself up in the mirror that day. The tiny bells on my crown were tinkling optimistically. The naked Venus figure on my t-shirt offset my long tiered skirt perfectly. I just knew that the Indigo Girls would know I was a true fan.

When we filed into the auditorium, I was nearly breathless. I snapped this photo of my friends Chris and Jessica waiting for the show to start.



Imagine the scene. Franklin High School auditorium, 1:00pm. I am perched in the 2nd row on the edge of my red plastic seat, tearfully wailing How long til my soul gets it right in exuberant harmony with the Indigo Girls. Rocking. The Fuck. Out.

The rest of the student body...is not.

They are restless, bored--watching the show with approximately the same enthusiasm as had been displayed at a recent assembly featuring actor Chris Burke, best known as Corky from Life Goes On.

This is my life, y'all.

When Emily and Amy said they'd have time for a few questions at the end, a hot wave of excitement rushed through me. What would I ask them?? The resounding silence from the other 800 people in the auditorium meant that I was going to have to think of something, fast.

It was a total accident. Someone, I don't remember who, had recently returned a little stuffed sheep to me that they had had for some reason. It was in my backpack.


Chris with sheep

I called out to them that I wanted to give them a present. I handed the little sheep to Amy. She thanked me and put it on one of the amps along with a few other little doodads. A little black sheep.



It turned out to be a fitting gift. A number of high schools ended up canceling the scheduled Indigo Girls concerts, ostensibly because of profanity in their music, but actually because the Bible Belt often has problems with The Gays and especially The Gays exposing themselves and their lifestyle to Our Children.

Huge, HUGE props to Doug Crosier, our principal, for being such a cool guy. Check out this Rolling Stone clipping about the cancelations, where Doug nails it with a pitch-perfect soundbite:



And as for my sheep, well...That summer, when I saw them play at Lilith Fair, I was sure that I spotted him on top of their amp. Wishful teenage thinking or a symbol of solidarity between the Indigo Girls and their shameless superfan? I may never know.

Discussion Question:
What's the best school assembly you ever had?

look away, look away

A recording of "Dixie" that's nearly 100 years old. Don't click on it if you find the song offensive.

It will surprise absolutely no one that my high school mascot was the Rebel. It was the same little guy as Ole Miss, but in our school colors of maroon and grey.


Couldn't find the right color but you get the gist

Our school seal had a Confederate flag in it, too. They flew by the dozens at our Homecoming celebration. The whole thing is antiquated and offensive and silly but it's pretty much par for the course in the South.

But I learned something interesting today.

I always learn the most interesting things at lunchtime at work. All the ladies crowd in the small kitchen and take turns microwaving their leftovers and Lean Cuisines and run their mouths about this and that while they flip through old OK magazines.

Today I learned that there are schools in Massachusetts that use the Rebel as their mascot. What?

Specifically I learned about the euphoniously named city of Walpole, MA. Walpole High School students are the Rebels just like we were. (All except the girls' field hockey team. They are the Porkers.) Until 1994, they used a Confederate flag as their symbol and sang "Dixie" in the stands. Unofficial lunchtime reports suggest the "Dixie" tradition persisted far beyond '94.

Even more confounding is the fact that a neighboring landowner has put up a gigantic Confederate flag adjacent to the field. He refuses to take it down amid much scandal.


photo from boston.com

What is happening here??? This place is well over 300 miles from the Mason Dixon line.

I really have no idea what to make of this. In Tennessee, you hear people speak of "heritage, not hate" when they explain the Confederate flags on splashed decals on their cars or superimposed over the silhouettes of busty women on their teeshirts. But how can it be "heritage, not hate" when there's no claim to the heritage? Is this an example of a weird fetishization of the South, similar to the way white culture has fetishized Native Americans as sports mascots for ages? Call me simple, but I had no idea you could find Rebels outside of Dixie.

Discussion question:
Someone please help me make sense of this.

PS I SAY FRANKLIN YOU SAY REBELS

one of many reasons I will have difficulty getting past St. Peter

Forgive me, y'all, for I have sinned.

I got into all kinds of mischief when I was a kid, but none quite so infamous as what we got into at the church that was adjacent to my neighborhood.

(If you're going to get all church-lady on me and faint over the idea of, say, kids stealing donuts from a Bible study meeting, you should probably stop reading now.)

Growing up in the sprawling suburborural reaches of outer Nashville meant that my little subdivision was surrounded by country roads and cow pastures and other subdivisions and not much else. I liked to read Baby-Sitter's Club books, and I was always baffled when Kristy and the gang would walk "around the corner" to grab a candy bar or walk to the library. Around what corner? All that's around the corner from my house is more houses that look like my house. And a church.

My best friend Bradley and I used to ride our bikes in the church parking lot pretty much every day. On weekends, kid's soccer teams used to play matches in the churchyard. Sometimes they'd leave the refreshment truck parked at the church through the week. Brad and I were fixated on breaking into that truck, perpetually mocked by the enticing Pepsi logo on the side.



Once, we got caught trying to break into it. I tearfully pleaded for forgiveness. Brad rode his bike into a ditch and pretended he was dead. I'm think Brad eventually got into that truck, but I ran away before I could partake in the endless fountain of Mountain Dew.

A whole new world of mischief opened up to us when the congregation broke ground on a beautiful new chapel.

I can't go into a lot of what happened. I do not recall anyone ever rollerblading in the sanctuary while it was under construction. If anyone ever walked in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the sanctuary during Sunday Mass while wearing an elaborate Godzilla mask, I don't know anything about it. And I swear up and down that, to this day, no one can explain how the Virgin Mary statue's missing thumb ended up in Bradley's mom's junk drawer. Our mothers are still horrified over that one.

There is one crime I am prepared to own up to.

Let me set the scene for you.

It is 1989 or 1990. The Simpsons is a cultural phenomenon. And Bradley has somehow managed to secure a can of red spray paint.



We are drunk with power.

We creep over to the church construction site under the guise of riding bikes. I spot the perfect canvas immediately.



Brad hands the can to me. I feel the weight of it in my hand. I squint up at the white construction trailer in front of me, almost blinded by its gleaming blankness. I push my glasses back up on my sweaty nose and take a deep breath.

I write, in three-foot-tall letters, the worst swear word I can think of.



I never got caught.

Discussion Question: What kind of unbelievable mischief did you get into as a child?

Tips for Southerners on Surviving New England Winters

This mixtape is brilliant. Download it free here.

In case you haven't heard, Boston sucks during the winter. How much does it suck? Almost as much suck as Shaq is awesome.


Boston's Shaq-o-metric snow-measurement system

Yep, that's 60+ inches of suck already this winter, with more falling as I type this. Even my devotion to Shaq is not enough to shake my long-established skepticism of New England winters.

So how is this sun-ripened Georgia peach dealing with her first winter in the frosty hinterlands of Massachusetts? Well, I have a few tips for all y'all on how to survive this nonsense.

#1: BUY A GIANT COAT

That pert little wool peacoat you've always worn straight through the winter? That's Aprilwear up here, pahdnah. Head to Land's End or Eddie Bauer or one of those other outdoorsy stores that choked your mailbox with catalogs straight through the 90s and find you a big, warm down coat.

I went with this one from Land's End, and it is so warm that I could wear it with nothing else under it and be comfy all winter long:



I also urge you to consider buying 2 or 3 subzero sleeping bags and having a tailor fashion them into a sort of hyper-warm adult snow onesie.


#2: CHEER YOURSELF UP WITH SOME GOOFY ACCESSORIES

Nothing says EFF YOU, SNOW like a pair of colorful wellies. I bought these ugly red and yellow ones from Marc Jacobs for a mere $28. I can tell the snow is already offended.



And hey, you've gone this far! Why not go further?


Thanks Racked

Take a cue from fellow FHS alum Ke$ha and put some kittie ears on your hat.


#3: GET A S.A.D. LAMP

It's totally just as good as the sun.




#4: GO ON VACATION

Don't try to fight it. Just buy a plane ticket to somewhere, anywhere warmer and more hospitable. I hear Chernobyl is lovely this time of year.

...Assuming your plane can take off.




#5: GET A GYM MEMBERSHIP

There are only two places in the whole city that feel like the South during a Boston winter. One is your shower and the other is your local gym.

Listen, listen. I know you're a Southerner and your idea of a vigorous workout is fishing the last RC Cola out of the cooler. Just trust me. Even if you never burn a single calorie, it is worth the monthly membership fee just to go bask in the 80 degree heat and 95% humidity. It's sweaty and smelly and if you bring your own bucket of chicken it basically feels like home.


#6: BE WILLING TO TRY SOME WINTER SPORTS

I mean, just check out this video of me and Nick and our friend James tearing it up skiing and snowboarding at Nashoba Valley:




#7: TAKE YOUR VITAMINS

Since you haven't felt sunlight on your skin since September, it's time to start taking some Vitamins. Vitamin D will help you feel less like a zombie. Now I finally have some use for the 200 bottles of Vitamin D I bought at Publix last year!


#8: GET AN APARTMENT WITH HEAT INCLUDED

This is the most valuable advice I got before I moved to Boston. We have free radiator heat in our apartment and THANK GOODNESS. Our apartment is so warm that we--no joke--sleep with the window partially open so we don't suffocate.


#9: STAY WARM WITH HAPPY MEMORIES OF THE SOUTH

When all else fails, close your eyes and go back to your happy place: The South. For me, that will entail FINALLY finishing my blog series on our amazing Southern summertime road trip. Catch up with the entries here:

one: we're on the road to nowhere
two: "Spectacles in the Surf: Seeing and Not Seeing on the DePalma Family Vacation"
three: miles covered
four: you got a fast car: drivin through the mountains

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How do you beat the winter blues?

didn't roll off the cabbage truck yesterday

Photo from Awkward Family Photos

Like every good 1980s girl, I had a Cabbage Patch Kid or two. I loved them--yarn hair, creepily vacant eyes, tattooed asses and all. But I never stopped to wonder where they came from.

There is actually an unnecessarily complex mythology surrounding the origins of the franchise. I won't attempt to summarize but suffice it to say that it involves a ten-year-old boy starting an orphanage to save the Cabbage Patch Kids from slave labor in a gold mine. However, what I'm talking about here is an even more improbable creation story. And this creation story is true.

In northern Georgia, there is a small town called Cleveland. In this town, there is a magical place.


Babyland General Hospital,
birthplace of Cabbage Patch Kids


Sort of like Tara...okay not really.

Yes, Babyland General Hospital is the birthing, nursery, and adoption center for Cabbage Patch Kids. You can go for free and see a Cabbage Patch Kid being born.

WHAT

How I went virtually my entire life without knowing this fact is beyond me.

But wait, you are no doubt saying to yourself. How exactly is a Cabbage Patch Kid born?

I'm glad you asked. I'm going to turn it over to the poorly written Wikipedia article for a moment.

Dolls are "birthed" every hour during business hours in a procedure during which one of the "LPN's" (Licensed Patch Nurse) assists the Magic Crystal Tree in producing each doll. When the intercom announces that a Mother Cabbage is in labor, a nurse hurries to get ready for delivery of a new Cabbage Patch baby. With the nurse are the pink and blue bunnybees that pollinate the kids with crystals, determining if the newborn is a boy [blue crystal] or girl [pink crystal]. The nurse comments on how much the Tree is dilated and injects with "Imagicillin," an "experimental but highly recommended" drug. If the need arises, a "C-section" or "Cabbage section" may be administered....A full-featured Intensive Care Unit is in place to handle premature births and otherwise unhealthy newborns.


The Magic Crystal Tree and Mother Cabbage, from whom all Cabbage Patch Kids flow

So some rabbit-bee creatures fertilize some cabbages and then a magic crystal tree gives birth to some human children with the help of a nurse? And the cabbages get shot up with an experimental drug? I can't believe I'm saying this but this is better than Teen Mom.

Let's see the blessed event unfold for ourselves:


I...can't even

As far as I'm concerned, the greatest horror in all of this is the names. Cabbage Patch Kids have the least euphonious names ever. If you go to www.cabbagepatchkids.com you can see an ever-refreshing slideshow of birth announcements.


Wait...she was born with pigtails?

ACTUAL CABBAGE PATCH KID NAMES:
Austin Jerri
Doreen Jillaine
Zena Jordyn
Tammy Betsy
Jaylee Derek
Grady Damien
Buck Clay
Gwynyth Kimber
Glendonn Ragan (A FEMALE NAME)
Garrison Dusty
Jaidyn Celia

And finally, bleak vision of the future:




What if this is what happens to bad people when they die?

This post is missing a huge shoutout to Mary Nell, who is responsible for alerting me to the existence of Babyland General Hospital. Once my disbelief gave way, we discovered via a quick Google search that someone out there had gone and done the most brilliant thing ever:





Kudos.

Discussion Question:
Can you cobble together even one respectable name out of the names listed above?

Days of our Loyns

“To be ranked in the top 10 among southern universities for 20 years in a row is quite an accomplishment and reflective of the hard work and commitment of our students, faculty and staff."
-Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J., Ph.D., President of Loyola University New Orleans

When it came time to pick a university, I had the best. idea. ever. Why not go to college in New Orleans?

My fellow Honors students, largely out-of-staters like myself, spent much of our first weeks of school marveling at our brilliant idea. How did no one else think of this??? we'd exclaim, our mouths full of crusty Po Boys and bellies full of beer.


we are GENIUSES (thanks losanjealous)

I loved Loyola. I loved the people, the classes, the music, the food, the culture, and most of all, the city that provided the setting for my golden undergrad years. I left my heart in New Orleans that muggy May day in 2005 when I moved away for good.

One of my college buddies told me today I should check out an article in The Maroon, Loyola's school paper. While reading the story of ADG's mysterious removal from campus and Sig Ep's suspension for the fall semester, I typed my own name into the Archives search box to see what came up.

Oh, the treasures. OHHHHH the treasures! Four uniquely hilarious remnants of my undergrad days.


4/7/05: ROBERTS A FINALIST FOR TRUMAN; JONES WINS MELLON FELLOWSHIP

This article is a dual-pronged shoutout to me and my girl Abby Roberts. We were ballin pretty hard in 2005. Abby was a finalist for the Truman Fellowship, and I had just scored the big Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanities. I was, as we liked to say, a mellow felon.


oh yes. that was a good look.

What on earth could be funny about a straight-ahead news story about scholarships?

"If I was a movie star, Davina would be my manager. She guided me through literally dozens of applications for fellowships."

What a f#$%in soundbite, huh?? Davina was the greatest mentor of all time, and if I found myself in need of someone to manage a nascent acting career I would be calling Davina first, but WHAT MADE ME SAY THIS TO A REPORTER? Out of the mouths of babes...


11/6/03: STUDENT BLOGGERS EXPOSE PERSONAL LIVES ON NET

Why, yes! That IS my hideous hairdo in the photo that accompanies this article! Thank you for noticing!



Isn't it super meta of me to be using my blog to link to an article where I comment about the New and Mysterious Phenomenon of Weblogging? Katie-generated gems of wisdom include:

"[Blogs are] kind of contagious. You read one of your friend's blogs that have cute pictures and mood icons, and you can't help but want one."

and

"It's a lot easier to be passive-aggressive and say inappropriate things on the Internet than to actually face reality. That goes along with the territory of blogging."



11/5/04: REACH OUT AND POKE SOMEBODY

Having already demonstrated my considerable expertise with social media, it is no surprise that the Maroon clamored to get my sage opinion when a new phenomenon called The Facebook swept campus by storm in 2004.

Katie Jones, classical studies senior, said she checks Thefacebook.com once a day to see if she has any new friends.



On the plus side, I did make a pretty spot-on prediction:

"Once Loyola picks up on (Thefacebook.com) more, it will be huge," Jones said."



9/4/03: GET YOUR MONEY'S WORTH: GO TO CLASS by Katie Jones

My darling college roommate Joe worked for the Maroon, which somehow yielded my being asked to write an editorial.

The 2nd anniversary of 9/11 was a week away. Bush had just called the war in Iraq a "catastrophic success." I was living in the most vibrant, wonderful city basically on earth ever.

So what did I write my editorial about? Going to class.

You really just need to read the editorial. Look, here's the link again. I have wanted to reread this article for a long time, and I have to say it aged pretty well. I really enjoyed reading it lo these many years later. My dear friends will know that all of the hypothetical situations mentioned are taken basically verbatim from our freshman year.

Reading this editorial really took me back to those warm, spicy days. My wonderful friends and all the things I learned. The crawfish boils and the shotgun houses. The streetcar rides and sunrise nights. The shenanigans and the debauchery. I miss those days.

And that side ponytail I'm rockin in the photo? A catastrophic success.

Discussion Question:
What are your favorite remnants from your college days?

miles covered

I'm sorry but this song is still incredible.

I can't believe our August of Camping and Tramping is already over! We got back to Nashville yesterday, and Nick and I are both recovering and being spoiled at our parents' houses for a few days before we LEAVE FOR BOSTON SUNDAY!

How about some trip stats?



Miles traveled: 4,004
Days traveling: 26
Hours driving: 72+
Route: Atlanta, GA to Franklin, TN to Edisto Beach, SC to Franklin, TN to Jefferson National Forest, VA to Shaker Village, KY to Charleston, WV to Shenandoah National Forest, VA to Hatteras, NC to Emerald Isle, NC to Wilmington, NC to Conway, SC to Atlanta, GA to Franklin TN

This balls-out crazy trip surpasses our former record-breaking trips: Atlanta to NYC to Atlanta (1760 miles/30 hours) and Austin to Nashville to Chicago [to Berlin via plane] to Nashville to Austin (2682 miles/44 hours, not counting the plane trip to Berlin). We love to drive but even we have to admit that this was a little nuts. But my LORD was it fun!

As you can imagine, I have a lot of posting to do about our adventures! I'll be getting stuff up one post at a time over the next few weeks. Now that I've learned to use Blogger's handy-dandy blog-scheduling tool, with any luck I'll have blogs posting even after we leave for Boston Sunday. Have I mentioned that I'm moving to Boston on Sunday? I digress. If you want a little ~sneak peek~ of our adventures, check out my flickr for lots of pictures.

Stay tuned for all kinds of assorted fun.

Discussion Question:
What is the longest road trip you've ever taken?


* * * * *

This is part three in my series about my August of Camping and Tramping.

one: we're on the road to nowhere
two: "Spectacles in the Surf: Seeing and Not Seeing on the DePalma Family Vacation"
three: miles covered
four: you got a fast car: drivin through the mountains

"Spectacles in the Surf: Seeing and Not Seeing on the DePalma Family Vacation"

"The Atlantic is not my Gulf, that much is true. She's choppier and grittier and colder, less inviting--just, I suppose, as she should be. But she's my ocean now."

I was splashing around knee-deep in the water at Edisto Beach when I composed these lines rather dreamily, dragging my fingers through the surf and squinting in the low sun. I got to But she's my ocean now at exactly the moment a three-foot wave overtook me from behind, knocked me off my feet, and swept my glasses from my face.



I grasped after them wildly as the wave pushed me, limbs akimbo, into shore and then sucked me back out again. I caught nothing but fleeting handfuls of churning water and sand.


they were my favorite pair.

I paid enough attention in grad school to understand the symbolism. No one knew about seeing and not seeing like the ancient Greek tragedians. And no one likes to talk at excruciating lengths about the tensions between seeing and not seeing more than classicists.

Remember Tiresias? The prophet from Oedipus the King and Antigone and Seven Against Thebes and lots of other incredible stories?


Sporting a sexy hipster beard on a Lucanian Red-figured calyx-krater c. 380 B.C

The whole thing with Tiresias was that he was blind, but he was a prophet, a seer. He couldn't see but he could see. Get it? Get it??


Get it???

Tiresias is emblematic of a recurring issue in Greek tragedy: is seeing knowing? Is not seeing not knowing?

As I groped half-blind and sopping for the shore, all I could think of was Tiresias. I knew this had to mean something, my new ocean blinding me. Maybe now I can see?

The only other time I've ever lost my glasses in the sea, they came right back to me, washed up at low tide and rescued by an alert lifeguard. I guess that's why I'm not too worried--they'll come back to me one way or another. And anyway, I had the foresight to bring a spare pair with me this time.



You got me this time, Atlantic. But I hope one day we can be friends.

Discussion Question:
When is seeing knowing? When is not seeing knowing?

* * * * *

This is part two in my series about my August of Camping and Tramping.

one: we're on the road to nowhere
two: "Spectacles in the Surf: Seeing and Not Seeing on the DePalma Family Vacation"
three: miles covered
four: you got a fast car: drivin through the mountains

we're on the road to nowhere

Bangin new music video from Biscuits and Gravy, ie my best friend Emily and her friend Steve.

As many of you know, Nick and Boudreaux and I are celebrating our transition from the Dirty South to Yankeeland by taking a big aimless camping trip this month. Since I know you've all been losing sleep wondering where we were going to go first, I have decided to end your tossing and turning.

Tomorrow morning we're leaving for Asheville, NC, where we will spend one lazy night before making our way to Edisto Beach State Park in South Carolina. We'll be camping for three nights in a tent in a secluded spot in a live oak forest about 1.5 miles from the beach. How did we choose this particular locale? It's the closest place on the Atlantic where we can camp with our dog.


X marks the area we'll be camping in.

We have big nothing planned while we're there. The week will consist of

grilled peaches


sunrises over the beach

Edisto Beach State Park

farm-stand produce


meeting other camping hoboes

Edisto Beach State Park

shish kebabs for every meal


and most importantly

dog butt in the sand

artist rendering of Boudreaux

Wish us luck as we embark on the first 600 miles!





it's gonna be just like this, except with less snuggies and children


Discussion Question:
Where do you want to see Nick and Katie go on their month of Camping and Tramping?

* * * * *

This is part one in my series about my August of Camping and Tramping.

one: we're on the road to nowhere
two: "Spectacles in the Surf: Seeing and Not Seeing on the DePalma Family Vacation"
three: miles covered
four: you got a fast car: drivin through the mountains