Coming home to New Orleans, behind in the romantic game and being bummed by Rent (New Orleans)

I am having lunch in my fave little fajita place on Iberville, Country Flame. I could not be happier.

I engaged my plane neighbour in conversation. Alice was living in New Orleans but was moving back to Chicago after 30 years because she hated the drugs and crime.  Well, no wonder! She lived on Apple Street across from a crack house (we shared a cab from the airport).

Coming back to New Orleans was like coming home, and very little has changed.  In fact, if anything the city is gentrifying. Kind of nice to see!  The taxi dropped me off at Matt and Patsy’s cute shotgun way down Calhoun above Tchoupitoulas, and I was greeted by Jack, the ultimate anti-guard beagle. He came up, sniffed, and otherwise showed very little interest in the stranger in his midst. Once I settled in I decided to spend the afternoon walking around Tulane University campus and, seeing as I was going for a walk, took lazy Jack with me.

Ambling under the giant oaks in Audubon park, I chuckled at the ghosts of my former rollerblading self, recalling how I would wobble and rumble along the uneven path, defiantly forcing grad student exercise. I winked at the turtles sunning themselves in the pond and tried to dissuade Jack from marking every single item which crossed his path. There isn’t an animal on earth that has as much urine as Jack thinks he has.

Crossing St. Charles to campus, it felt like I had never been away. The staff remembered me instantly. Sue joyfully caught me up on all the gossip.

“Darryl got married.  Huck is getting married this weekend. Laura is married or will be soon. Helena got married.  Steve and Cameron ended up together. Peter is engaged. Drew is engaged…”

And Amy is lining up blind dates in the Internet. I felt like a romantic retard.

That evening Patsy and I jumped the Magazine bus to Bacco for our pre-theatre meal. After a meal of corn and crawfish bisque, oysters, seafood ravioli and apple cake, we took the “Baccomobile” to the Saenger Theatre to see Rent. I have never been more depressed. When the main character read his girlfriend’s letter that said “we’ve got AIDS”, I was overwhelmed with sadness and couldn’t focus on the rest of the play. If there was any optimism I missed it.