Enriching the English language, uncontrolled New Orleans shopping and getting the grad school gossip (New Orleans)

Left to my own devices today (I needed time to recover from spending time with Matt). Hopped the Magazine Meteor to the Quarter where I purchased something I definitely was lacking: another pair of shoes!  A very quickly consummated love affair with black mules with a wedge heel. I had been wearing jean shorts, a white Daniel Hechter terrycloth polo, and – horrors!  Running shoes with sweat socks (albeit Calvin Klein socks)?! I was embarrassed to be seen with myself. Sweet relief to hoove (the English language is poorer for its lack of a verb for putting on shoes. Removing shoes? Dishoove.) more fashionable footwear.

I almost succumbed to a really cute light yellow chenille shirt with the unadorable price of US $95, but I resisted, proving that I had some self control when it come to my own indulgences. That was short lived.

I found myself in a crowded folk art shop where I purchased two dia de los muertos shadow boxes. I accelerated my spending frenzy by picking up my favourite hot sauce (green Cajun Chef) followed by the sign that now greets visitors to my home in Toronto,  “Beware pickpockets and loose women”.  I then spent $110 on a new belly button ring and walked to Simon’s studio on Magazine Street (after dishooving my now painful new shoes) where I acquired three Catholic iconographic pieces and a painting by Simon himself of an orange cat celebrating Hallowe’en in Uptown.  At this point I stopped before completely spiraling out of control.

For fun I dropped by my neighbourhood, the 4600 block of Carondelet, right by Sacred Heart Girls’ School. As I was hanging outside with my old neighbours, one of the tenants of my former residence came home and kindly indulged me in a walk down memory lane. Holy shit, were those guys pigs.  My beloved walk-in closet was out of control. My old bedroom… I have never seen anything like it. The western wall was a cordillera of soiled, rumpled, dirty clothes. Every inch of floor space was covered with some sort of crap – paper, garbage, old food cartons. It was a blessing that the light switch no longer worked. Downstairs I noticed a dust pile on the floor which, on closer inspection, proved to be a pile of dead cockroaches. Why would you go to the trouble of sweeping the cockroaches into a pile but not get rid of them? But it got worse. My host recalled the time he was siggint in the living room when a huge rat went skittering by. (In New Orleans, rats are the size of small elephants.)  He added for good measure that one time the dishes were left so long in the sink that maggots took up residence. Time to go!

That night I met up with my friend Dan at Casamento’s, home of the oyster, followed by the Galactic show at Tipitina’s.  We ended the night at F&M’s where my new friend Sean plied us with drinks and Dan plied me with scandalous gossip from our class. Who knew Laura was such a slut?!