back.

well, i'm back, like sam gamgee, except i have not traveled all over Middle Earth, only over the bridge to New Orleans, and i only hope that i spelled his name right; i do not have my dear book with me for reference.

my lonely malady is ebbing and i cannot begin to explain the significance of this, so i will not begin. just like T.S. Eliot, it is impossible to say just what I mean! i wish my cold was following suit. it is still thick in my lungs and walking along the Mississippi River at night in February dressed in a flimsy blazer [that smells of crawfish now] did not help my condition. i guess i am in a worse place than i thought because at my reluctance to consume some horrid liquid medicine [i cannot swallow pills easily, at all], my mother started to bring up death. colds and death have never been juxtaposed in my mind before; this scared me and i took the stinky medicine. i do feel better, though. i suppose i won't die.

i am no Lestat, i tell you. i am no New Orleanian. the place is not mine, i think. i have never seen voodoo shops closed in between churches with the names of saints. i have never seen Mardi Gras beads hanging from the necks of cherub statues. i have never seen a tap-dancing corpse receiving kisses from the laughing elderly [makes one think]. i have never seen a jazz funeral, i have never seen a place with quarters that look worse than the neighborhoods of jackson.

aside from all of that, New Orleans is, of course, beautiful. Always has been. i love the palmetto trees, the colourful, tall, brick buildings with their wrought-iron galleries, starkly white cemeteries, where famous war heroes are buried with the locals' relatives. i cannot remember the name, i think it is Flemings' Cemetery, is where some scenes of Interview with the Vampire was filmed. the place is very beautiful and in dilapidated shape. the tombs are all knocked over from flooding and all surround an Indian [Native American] burial mound that has a single white cross marking a European grave there. it might be Jean Lafite's wife, but i could be very wrong. anyways, they say the ghost's spirit gets no rest there in the burial mound, because it doesn't belong. how cool! sounds like some of the tales told in Mississippi about the Witch and all.

i think that i will upload some pictures, if they turned out okay. if not, i will just take some more next week, or so. that is all, for now. au revoir. let the good times roll! laissez les bons temps... whatever.