My Tail in Two Cities Redux

Last week at this time I was standing out on the corner of Louisiana and Claiborne picking up trash, sweeping up debris and filling 8 large trash bags full of crap on my own little personal corner of the world as part of the Katrina Krewe cleanup. I expected to be doing the same thing this week as it was not only a spectacular experience of getting something done (along with a bunch of other people) in a town where getting ANYTHING done right now is a significant challenge. But the rain has stepped in this morning and today's cleanup has been canceled. I'll be back in a couple of weeks though and it's not like the trash is going away any time soon.

On Wednesday I head back for San Francisco for two weeks and then I'll be back again to New Orleans by the 10th in time to catch some friends of mine in the Krewe du Vieux parade through the Marigny. They're even starting to put up the stands for the BIG parades along St. Charles and while it doesn't really feel much like Carnival right now, it is coming along. I am divided (as I usually am) about going back to San Francisco right now, but the fact remains that I actually need the break. After two weeks, and with my broadband connection at home down and the city's much touted FREE WiFi providing dubious coverage at best, I am finding it frustrating and difficult to get things done in a truly timely fashion. Work is starting to pile up as I take things on with the activity level I would have in California but with only about half the available resources and time.

EVERYTHING takes longer in The Big Easy... it always has. Now, it all takes A LOT longer. I am ready, even if just for a couple of weeeks, to be in a city where the buses run more or less on schedule (I NEVER thought I'd be saying that about San Francisco public transportation, but all things are relative I guess), where I have a steady and pretty much dependable broadband connection, where I can easily drop into a movie theater and see something on the big screen, and where I can have lunch (or a Margarita after work) with my daughter.

It will also be nice to hear news of something OTHER than Katrina. In New Orleans these days that is ALL you here, and rightly so. But there really is a whole world on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain... there's a war, and racism, and civic need in other places in the U.S. and around the world. Cleaning up Louisiana and Claiborne (or, as I did yesterday, helping Al "Carnival Time" Johnson move a bed into his new apartment) is the perfect example of acting locally, but I'm finding a need for Thinking Globally as well.

In two weeks I'll be ready to return and hit it again. I'll be sick of being around people who don't have a clue about New Orleans, who are too stupid, or too blind to realize that if we don't STAND together, we will SINK separately in the New America of Dubya and Dick, and I will long for news that feels like it matters to me personally. I will NEED a bowl of real Gumbo, and some fresh oysters, and Joe Krown; I'll want to see my friends.

I'll also be ready to wear some stupid plastic beads around my neck like they really matter, and I'll scream with the best of them for somebody to "Throw Me Something Mister!" And I'll be longing to get gloves on my hands and pick up the crap that's right in front of my face.

But right now... I'm ready to see the ocean again.