New Orleans is my essence, my soul, my muse,
and I can only dream that one day she will recapture her glory.

-Harry Connick Jr

I love New Orleans. I love the blatant debauchery of Mardi Gras, the soulful beauty throughout the year. I love the sultry heat. I love that the voices of everyone there seem to sing. I love the food, the music, the tourists and the natives.

I do not love the pictures of me that have been taken there. At least at Mardi Gras. Yes, I was 18 and 19 at the time…. still, I think I’ll spare you. This was the only one I deemed not too humiliating. That’s me at center, Jeff at my right. Don’t ask me how he got all those beads.

This picture was taken at Andrew Jaeger’s House of Seafood on Royal St, a restaurant I’ve visited every time I’ve been in New Orleans; if it still stands and you ever find yourself in that area you must try it.

Do you like how three of us shared the same jar of Manic Panic to dye our hair for the occasion? That’s classy.

Today, I wish I was in New Orleans; instead, I am getting ready to take all three kids for three consecutive dentist appointments. Fun!

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone. Laissez les bon temps roulez.

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work,
from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.

-Henry Matisse

Some calm, misty mornings around here, these last few days.

Meanwhile, I feel like I’m a speeded-up black and white silent film, a Buster Keaton maybe; a comedy of errors. I keep messing up the simplest things. I am fatally behind on emails, projects, life. Everything I do is wrong.

Ever feel that way?

Anyway, some weekend reading for you. Enjoy!

Is the recession hurting our health? Let’s see, Spam sales are up, McDonald’s, Dominos, KFC, all up. Gym memberships down by 20%. What’s wrong with this picture? What’s the real cost?

I have one real vice, one siren call that makes me put on shoes and brush my hair and go to the store…and it is Pepsi. I know, it’s sad, and I’m working on it, I swear. It looks like Pepsi is switching out the (mercury-tainted) high fructose corn syrup and replacing it with real, actual sugar. Does that make it any better?

The average age for a first cell phone in the UK is 8 years old. Ha, don’t tell my kids… I told them they could get cell phones when they were old enough to get a job to pay for them.

**********

People are out of their minds. I’m sure you heard about the lady whose chimpanzee ripped her friend’s face off (I was unlucky enough to be subjected to the 911 call on the news) and was shot dead.

You may or may not know that the chimp’s mother also was gunned down.

Now the Huffington Post reports that there are about 7,000 pet freaking tigers in America. I repeat. People are out of their minds.

Jeff pointed out that probably lots of pet chimpanzees have their lives end in violence. Because they are not meant to be pets, not meant to be kept in captivity, not meant to be mated and bred, not meant to be forced to live among a different species. Primates have families and societies and cultures and they probably just… snap at some point. I mean, wouldn’t you?

OK, back to the economy. I really liked this article from Jim Randel which advises that “young people should not invest in stocks, real estate or even savings beyond a reasonable safety cushion. They should invest in themselves.” Love to hear your thoughts about this.

Ugh, ugh, ugh, yuck, yuck, yuck. Just when I thought my daughter might be growing past the Dora the Explorer stage, Nickelodeon and Mattel forge an evil partnership and create tweenage Dora and friends.

This groundbreaking initiative, featuring fashion dolls and accessories, is a completely new brand extension that empowers girls to influence and change the lives of Dora and her new friends. It’s innovative, diverse, wholesome, bi-lingual and entertaining.

It’s sickening, that’s what it is.

Here’s another one I wrote for Eco Child’s Play: Remembering When Scholastic Meant Good Books. This has had the most pageviews of all my articles, meaning that many more people in the world know what a booknerd I am and always have been.

I know I spend a lot of time here reminding people to donate to their local food banks, but the need doesn’t go away when the holidays end. Food banks were hit hard recently by the whole peanut butter recall and were forced to throw away thousands of pounds of food containing tainted peanut products.

Remember, a dollar can pay for several meals because food banks buy in tremendous bulk. Every dollar counts.

Finally, because I couldn’t resist:
Drunk Pantsless Man Steals Elderly Lady’s Diapers.

Yep.

That’s all, folks.

Wokka wokka wokka.

Great loves too must be endured.
-Coco Chanel

Every year on this day, I think of how my junior year English teacher pulled me aside at the end of January to inform me that, as extra credit, I could write an essay in the voice of John Donne about Valentine’s Day.

This conversation worried at the back of mind for the next two weeks. Why did she want me to do this? I didn’t need extra credit in English, did I? As far as I knew, I was carrying a nearly perfect score in that class. Had I failed to turn something in? Was my GPA plunging without my knowing it?

And why this assignment? I hated Valentine’s Day (and still do). A day engineered to make the uncoupled feel badly about themselves, a day where those who did have significant others in their lives built up expectations that may or may not be met. A day to buy to prove our love.

Mind, I went to an all-girl school. All day long, as florists delivered their overpriced bounty, the PA would buzz on and a voice would summon so-and-so to the office to claim their evidence of being loved. It made me ill. That year, and all years, I forbade whoever I was with to buy me anything on Valentine’s Day.

Just treat me well all through the year, that’s all I ask.

So I just let the day go by. I didn’t do the extra credit assignment. And I didn’t need to, I got an A in that class. The next year that teacher and I were talking- she was writing my college recommendations for me- and she mentioned how disappointed she was that I failed to present John Donne’s speech on Valentine’s Day.

“I hate Valentine’s Day,” I told her.

“How do you think John Donne would have felt about Valentine’s Day?” she laughed.

I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry.
-John Donne

Oh.
Here was a teacher, looking to tap into my sarcastic nature, giving me permission to lampoon the silly romantic customs of my peers, and I totally let that opportunity slip by.

How did she know me so well?

Anyway, I still really don’t like Valentine’s Day, the showy aspect of the whole thing, the push for commercialized cards (that are strewn all over my living room floor until I get around to gathering it up and tossing it into the bin), the enormous quantity of candy my kids consumed yesterday afternoon (I’m guessing a gallon of red food dye was involved).

Don’t get me wrong. Yes, I love, and I do try to show it. I resent being told when and how.

So, celebrating in my own way. My favorite quotes on love….

I love her and she loves me,
and we hate each other
with a wild hatred born of love.

-August Strindberg

To love abundantly is to live abundantly,
and to love forever is to live forever.

-Henry Drummond

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

-Elbert Hubbard

A great many people fall in love with or feel attracted to
a person who offers the least possibility of a harmonious union.

-Rudolph Dreikurs (psychologist)

Perfect love means to love the one
through whom one becomes unhappy.

-Soren Kierkegaard

To love is to stop comparing.

-Bernard Grasset

Oh, I have loved him too much to feel no hate for him.

-Jean Raccine

We think about sex obsessively except during the act,
when our minds tend to wander.

-Howard Nemerov

Love begets love.
This torment is my joy.

-Theodore Roethke

Love is not a sad man sitting under a tree, but a raging sword flashing with blood and fire.

-Steven Milhauser
“An Adventure of Don Juan”

The most important things are the hardest to say,
because words diminish them.

-Stephen King

Love consists in this,
that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Enjoy your day!