Last Daze in P-town

Talking about feeling like starting over! 24 hours from now I will be on the Airport Express bus halfway to the San Francisco airport. At noon I will catch a plane to Atlanta where I will meet my folks, drive back to North Carolina and head back in the van, with Roxanne the dog, to the Crescent City. What awaits me remains to be seen.

It's very interesting that, despite news reports (Anderson Cooper on CNN has been broadcasting all week from the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street, a place that I only know from a few Mardi Gras soirees I've been to there) but the information on those shows has been about as limited as the few bits and pieces of info I have gleaned from emails and phone calls with friends who have returned. Even places where things are approaching "normal" seem to be covered in a great cloud of unknowing.

Even though the camera at Fat Harry's shows people eating outside most of the day, there is very little traffic that passes in the background and I have so far seen no sign of the St. Charles Streetcar (my primary mode of transportation) passing by on the neutral ground. I have a definite need to hit town and find out things for myself. As of now, I am planning on staying for several weeks and then coming back to California, but those plans could change at any time.

A major sign of progress in my life right now is that plans change a couple times a week now, instead of a couple times a day. Stability and certainty (such as it is) is returning, ever so slowly, to my life.

The image I have of life for the next six months to a year is more like the years before I made the move to New Orleans (now three months ago). I plan to be in New Orleans as much as possible, but I also expect that to do all of the work I want and need to do I will have to be back in California pretty often. To that end, I met with the folks at Outpost Studios in San Francisco to set up a working relationship that allows me an office where I can work (as the contract reads)"safely, securely, and comfortably." Wow... What a concept! I wish the contract guaranteed stability and creativity, but that's probably too much to ask.

One thing that is very clear is that I will not be returning to Petaluma except to visit friends, have a beer at Dempsey's, meet with business clients, or have a coffee and a pastry at Della Fattoria. My five year stay in P-town (and my 16 year stay in Sonoma County) is over. When I am not in New Orleans, I will be based in San Francisco.

One way or another (or more likely BOTH ways AND the other), this city boy is going back to his city.