I had a conversation this afternoon in which the topic came up

Dreamers

And how we are not anymore

We are doers

Me and this other person

We sell creativity in several forms

There was a time where she worked as a first responder

Like on an ambulance

In New Orleans

She wasn’t doing what she was doing yet

There was a time where I was

An Adjunct Professor at a film school

Having dinners, drinks, and ongoing developmental conversations with real film producers AND one aspiring

The podcast was just something I was doing

Then something happened

And I’m sure something happened for her too

I went from dreaming about doing

Vacationing in the attempt to live an adventurous life

Now vacationers pay me to fulfill their dreams

At least their dining ones and the magic of who they might have the privilege of interacting with while here

Away from their normal lives

I’ve traded my normal life for this one

Me and this lady who both work on Toulouse Street work in The Tourism Industry

Here in New Orleans

This all started when she brought up The Seneca quote currently chalked on the wall at Trumpet & Drum

“Those who no longer hope no longer fear.”

We unpacked what we both thought that meant

It dawned on me that I no longer require hope

I am headed somewhere through my actions I take right now

I don’t have to wonder anymore

I can just let life surprise me with what comes

I didn’t get to the heart of how she feels about it

She seemed mostly sad but also

She admitted in this moment in her life, she is focused on persevering as she gets pummeled by whatever it is that’s pummeling her

We wrapped up our talk by acknowledging that everything about life is a mirror

A disco ball

A mirror ball

Reflecting each other back to each other for the purposes of so called growth

She used the word ‘fix’

At one point

I bristled

I disagree

Nothing’s wrong because nothing is

Fixed

Static is an illusion like the surface of calm waters

To no longer be aspiring is like this mourning period

But now my job is more like

Giving the dreamers what they crave so that maybe one day just one day

They can leave everything they’ve ever known behind too

Spiritual quests sure are interesting

“I’m never bored.”

Like another one of my friend’s confidently proclaimed months ago after we watched The Krewe Du Vieux parade pass by his house

What is the opposite

Of needing attention 247?

What is the opposite of that

Privacy?

Positively impacting others without getting the credit?

What is the opposite of Donald J. Trump?

I always found the business of personal branding

Uncomfortable

For awhile I thought maybe I feared what I was supposed to do

Now I’m like

Yes

The algorithm likes my face more than my words

I guess that’s why I felt like I had to “put it to work” for me somehow

It’s a funny feeling when you’re making money off your own image

Technically, I have both of my jobs because of my image

Personal brand feels like something poor people do so that maybe one day their children can afford to live private lives

I don’t know

I’m amazed at the Narcissism of some of my friends

It probably matches mine, and that’s part of why we’re friends

But I keep thinking about this one

Yesterday, I made a post on my Instagram Story to reach her through sounds and symbols

I always speak that language with male friends I have across the Internet but I rarely converse with women like that

I think

Personally

She’s taken her personal branding business too far

What she’s selling feels

Wrong

Feels cult like

I told her that once, and she didn’t stop talking to me

What is the opposite of being in the spotlight constantly on Social Media?

What is the ability to rest

To disappear for a bit?

I feel it distinctly on my days off

When I’m hiding by the pool or in my room

Creating quietly

The guard falls

It’s just me and nature

And a wondering what’s going on with everyone I love

I guess I become the viewer in those instances

Or the person texting

Reaching out in some way

Running into them on the street as I make my quarter rounds

Is that the opposite of the current President of the United States?

Going around and caring about what’s going on with everyone else?

Isn’t that the very job of the position of President?

To make it never about you?

That’s the kind of leadership I aspire to

No

That’s the kind of leader I already am

I don’t need a critical mass of likes and shares and views to comprehend that I have an impact

I don’t need proof

I feel it

I know it

I don’t have to try so hard to be

Memorable I guess?

I just am

I think that’s it

That’s it

Do we already live in a world where the majority of people are like that?

Is it just that the ones who are not are loud?

I haven’t written while tipsy in a

Long time

The last time, I was 26

And I’d get off work at the Tiki bar

My foods here

One sec

Okay

Back in 2015

I’d get off at 3am

4am for a spell

And have a shift drink

A double shot pour of some rum

Then I’d walk home and write

It was pages

Pages as in play pages

Dialogue

I was writing She <3’s NY

A memory play

Back then I thought

Alcohol gets you closer to the truth

Now 11 years later I ask

Which truth?

A negative one?

A one that unites other people in misery?

Why is the truth always understood to be bad

In the collective minds of men, women, they, them

Why is the momentary

Descent to Hell

Real

Whereas our Joy is only temporary

I feel better having eaten this Mac & Cheese at The Double Club in the Quarter

What if we thought about it all backwards?

What if our Joy is the real deal and our

Despair is only temporary

What if that was our baseline modus operandi towards life?

How much of what we see would be different?

I’m beginning to realize…

This morning, I was talking to a friend about his theory that the secret self has to come out
Of every person
They have to slowly, carefully become aware of the mask they wear the most for society and then
Peal it back
Cast it off
And be braver in their life
My energy is different this morning
Almost like
My secret self
My real self
Out
And about
I’m wearing colors
I’m feeling
Sexy
I even moisturized my tattoos
I’m embodying a certain energy
I’ve removed a lot these past couple of weeks
Like coughing up tar out of black lungs
All sorts of old dead beliefs about myself and others were coming up
Making things messy
I had to spend time cleaning up those explosions everywhere I went
All the lies I spread about myself simply because they were visibly hitting my consciousness for the first time
Ever
I was ready to let go
Be gone
Of more
American programming
Of patriarchal bullshit
Of being run on fear like electricity
Now it’s like
Those fears are cute
Like bunnies
Like Compere lapins
Like tricksters
That convince you they are there and then they’re gone
Never to return
I feel lighter
Braver
Just the way my pal Ricky described the process he thinks people go through to become themselves
I started the book I bought from another friend
Lauren
Her shop yesterday
It’s about New Orleans and it’s spiritual life as a place
And one woman’s accepting that it’s happening and that she’s part of it
So here I am
It’s May now
I am in tact
My life is in tact
In the face of all those storms that came and passed
I’m remembering my horny self
A powerful self
That’s just fully present and aware of the magic
And the mystery without obsessing over the need to know all
My energy is bright, and I’m still at my jobs
Wow
No societal mask instantly popped on
I’m going to see my boyfriend tonight after work

All is flowing in my world
I’m being like The Mississippi
As I nicknamed it earlier last year, New Orleans Duende is Duendeing
Rushing waters style
Finally
For this woman

All that muck
Sludge
All the lessons
They were worth this
Natural as hell
Outcome

I’ve been rocked

Made aware of how much I center myself at every moment

I see it now

Like daylight but the kind that melts vampires

Stark

Savage

My eyes are burning

I see how my actions have caused me a lot of what can only be characterized as strife

Or really where

Operating from a big fearful energy has led to great pain

But my energy doesn’t have to stay stuck

Or low

Or reminiscent of

The way my Mom isolated herself because she was just “too good”

To allow people to “treat her that way”

I work in two different environments now where I am part of a team

lol even now I shouldn’t be writing this

While on the clock during a momentary lull in service

But I had to get this out before the full moon rose on May 1st

Okay pause

Back to the floor

To be continued

Ego

The thing that feels like me but isn’t all there is

Resume

I’m lying in my bed in my Japanese robe

Sweaty

I’ll shower in the morning

Contemplating how I accomplished a lot today with everybody I work with

Tomorrow is one of my supervisor’s last day until the fall

She’s going away for the summer

I’ll miss her

I’ve been working at both of these places almost three months now

Wow

I have felt invisible at times in this work

So invisible that it’s scary

I’m afraid I’ll disappear

But maybe just maybe that’s the lesson here

What

will disappear?

What am I clinging onto

Why do I often feel so afraid?

This piece feels like the end of that period

Where my nervous system is confused why things are so calm

Something bad must be about to happen

No

Life isn’t constantly like that

It never was

It’s just so much harder to accept that I am now part of a whole

And that doesn’t make me any less

“valuable”

It never did

I feel so naked in all of my humanness

It’s time to brush my teeth like most people most nights

Tomorrow is the first day of May

And I’m looking at her

My ego as if she’s ashes at the end of the St. Ann’s parade

Why have I always been so terrified of not mattering?

If I don’t center myself all the time, I’ll still exist

I promise

I’ll still be loved too

I moved to New Orleans to lead a revolution

What am I doing?

Seriously

How small have I been playing

How scared of somebody’s bad Yelp Review

At either one of my places

For fear it will get me fired

Why is that even on my mind?

I moved to New Orleans to host revolutionary meetings in my living room

I haven’t hosted a single one

Why

I feel like the longer I’m here and the more people have seen me go through shit, the more folks realize that I’m serious

And this is possible

In the last week and a half, two people who I’ve been trying to have revolutionary talks with forever reappeared in my life ready for a coffee meeting

Finally

After all the blood, sweat, labor and starving of last year, now they seem ready to just

Begin

Nobody else is going to do it

The revolution is complete within

Now it’s coming out onto the surface

It’s on the tip of my tongue

The words

Like a channeled message

Like a narrative

That I’ve spent the past two and half years constructing day by day

Post by post

Spiraling Instagram Story after Instagram Story

As my mind, heart, and soul process a mile a minute before

The breakthrough

I wrote Revolution

The first one back in December

Actually it’s hand written on paper next to me with a print my boyfriend bought me at an estate sale for Christmas

He had it all framed together for my birthday

What am I doing

Why have I played so small since meeting him

As if

If he actually knew me, he wouldn’t like me

Why don’t I let him know me

Why can’t I let the warrior out

Is this that moment where I rip the mask off

And I stop just stop pretending like I’m sweet, innocent

Naive and in need of any protection?

For his comfort

Or not even that

For me perceiving that that is his comfort?

What good does it do to hide who I am from someone I supposedly love

I moved to New Orleans to lead a revolution

An American

Revolution

A Creative Revolution

I know how

I have been working slowly

Consistently

Since May of 2024

Every day, I show up online

And I say what I have to say

And I figure more out about the simulation we’re all living in and how it is all lies

It is all just a story

A world built by someone else who’s not that

Imaginative

Or hopeful

Or loving

When will the first meeting take place in my living room

I’m setting a date on my calendar on my MacBook right

Now

Tuesday May 12th

6pm

Will you be there?

DM me for the address

It’ll be

In The French Quarter

The Last Frontier of Bohemia

Another anxious, tormented writer declared it that

A certain Tom Williams

Otherwise known as Tennessee

I know he’ll be there with us in spirit

He’s my biggest champion here

So many of us are just dying to consume next to someone else

To go to dinner with them

To do things

To participate as buyers in the economy

What’s wrong with this picture?

Shouldn’t we want to make memories with our significant other

Friends and family?

When I was a child, my family would watch TV at dinner time

I was always confused by that

Who was this

In our home?

Were we supposed to be doing something else?

Under Capitalism Romance, every human being has a dollar value

It depends on your age

Your sex

What you are good at

If you are a status symbol when placed next to someone else

You can’t escape this hierarchy that invisibly runs the world

At least

You couldn’t

I want to challenge this type of romance

This construct that’s pinned to me like a pin in a Voodoo Doll

Creating significance where there is none

I was talking with someone last night who’s non binary about how I find it extremely harrowing being perceived as a woman

If I pretend to be nice and kind all the time, it will supposedly keep me safe

It feels like that’s my job at both of my jobs

I’m in hospitality

I’m supposed to always be welcoming

Agreeable

And say no

Without saying it

I observe people consuming constantly especially at the restaurant

Who you go to dinner with says something about you

It’s so silly if you start to really think about it

When did we decide this was intimacy

Or did the advertisers just tell us that over and over again until we believed them

I’m sick of playing a role

A role I longed for and wanted in the first place

So much so that it happened

And then I became terrified of losing it

Losing what

The perception of being in a Capitalist Romance

I’ve been looking at what’s under the surface of all those interactions

My partner and I have had

Being the good little consumers

Paying for shit on credit cards to keep each other happy

None of that was ever necessary

We both always just wanted to get to know each other

That was the only way either of us knew how

But it’s not too late

Now that the veil has lifted from my eyes, I see myself naked

In my Japanese robe

Tired and sweaty from work

Sitting on the floor typing this

Free somehow

Of the burden of looking perfect and happy

To everybody who doesn’t know it’s all much more complex than that

Today at both of my jobs, I tried not being so overtly bubbly

I tried out being matter of fact

It felt better

Less energy required of me

And the guests didn’t seem to react much differently

A friend of mine who stopped in at the hotel remarked that I was talking differently

Not so

Gushing and adoring but more

Matter of fact

Honest

Clear

Without judgement

No drama

I like this new me

She feels less concerned with what everybody is thinking of her all of the time

She’s not a character in an advertisement

She’s not stuck watching TV with other people

Now she scarfs down chicken tenders in the back of the kitchen watching the cooks prep all sorts of new, good smelling things

She’s awake to the utter illusion of it all

She makes money off of it

When she’s not on the clock, she longs for time to write and

Long good winding conversations

She’s making baby steps forward towards this new iteration

This slightly less American

Adult woman

Who’s anything but weak

And naive

Who thrives in dire situations

Her mask is coming off

What is the romance beyond spending money to make each other look good

I will find out soon

Photo by Parker Galloway

I wrote a screenplay

My “A24 thriller”

It’s called Cuffing Season

It stars Sabrina

What I named this archetype within myself that I used to play

And sometimes find myself playing again

To keep me safe

From male violence

She comes out when I need to use beauty or even sex to protect myself

From a man’s

Emotions

Or literally in my 20’s

Because I was scared if I didn’t, I wouldn’t survive

Sabrina is perceived to be delicate

But she’s anything but

Big strong men long to take care of her in the story but all she wants to do is run

Run far away from their control

She usually just runs into some other man’s arms

Protect me from that man she implies with her doe eyed looks and sweetness and softness

Who knows what “he” is capable of

When I was 34, I read “Women Who Run With The Wolves” every night before I went to sleep; It took me all year, but I finished it in its entirety

It was deep

I had to be high at times to scrape all the meat off the bones of the meaning

It revealed to me that so much of my external persona was again designed to make me look non threatening

To keep me safe from predators

The masks I wore were all based on protection

While I read this book, I trained Muay Thai with a private coach

People on the street started to not want to mess with me because I suddenly felt tough

It was a weird time in my life

I was an Adjunct Professor

I was single

I was making more money than I had ever made before, and I could afford to live alone in a 2 bedroom apartment

I had just started my podcast

I was working on Cuffing Season Draft 9

All in Word Docs and Random notes to myself

I didn’t actually write my favorite draft until October of 2024

Then it just came out

Exactly what I had wanted to say about all of it

The first time I attempted to write Cuffing Season, it was August of 2020

It was a short

It got me into grad school

It was the beginning of my being able to view how much I hated my current life

I’d like to make the film someday

As a writer/director

In real Chicago bars and restaurants

And I’d like to say something about removing the mask

Because Sabrina’s persona did anything but keep her safe

It always put her right in the line of

The most danger

She was always this helpless creature even though she really wasn’t

It’s 2026

And once again I have realized

That she has made an appearance on my face again

Every time I try to bury what’s really going inside of me down

Every time I play this

Sexy

Smiley

Cute

Baby like character

That’s not me

That’s her

I named a plant after her in the Summer of 2021

I kept it alive for 9 months

Sabrina

She has nothing to do with feminine energy

She has been the grave that’s held real feminine energy hostage

6 feet under

But now it’s bursting out of the ground

It has no concern for

Power

Or control

Or a fear of being controlled

Feminine energy can’t

It’s a warrior

Who shares her sweetness only when it’s earned

That’s how I’d like to be

I’d like to be more

Deliberate

When I give of myself

And how

And to whom

I’m excited for when I get to make this

Maybe with A24

It’ll be like an exorcism

I’ll ask all the actresses and actors to read what they can of Women Who Run With The Wolves

Big strong men long to take care of her in the story

But all she wants to do is run

Into the arms of some other man

That’s not me anymore

At all

Not even a little bit

So why does that face still appear on mine when I’m petrified of the cost of

Being real?

To me, freedom is not

Going where I want

When I want

For as long as I want

For me, this is behaving in all of the wide spectrum of what’s possible within me and being loved for it anyway

All of it

My weakest, brittlest moments and my greatest victories

To be witnessed is something I am used to now

I know what it feels like to be desired

I also know what it feels like to sense others’ disappointment in me

And I know how to not let that kill me anymore

The way it once did

I have cognitively understood when I am being misunderstood and I don’t feel a rush to explain myself anymore

To fix

To change what is happening

I let it happen now

I feel deeply uncomfortable about it still but even when it’s someone I love deeply

I have this new unshakeable faith that

The universe will take care of the miscommunication

It will explain everything to everyone in time

There’s times where I am scared that I will never achieve this certain kind of freedom

I know this is something I can do for other people

I can have compassion

Empathy

Understand almost anything

I just long

I long for someone to give me that same grace

That same unconditional approach to loving me

No matter what I do when I am anxious, frightened, or overwhelmed

I want to be loved for it

Through it

I want love to lift me like wings and fly me towards the other side of this vast ocean

I have been strong for myself my whole life

And I am impenetrably strong for others but I would like to know what it’s like when I know

That forever and ever

Or as long as we are both still alive

He will do that for me

Freedom is not

Being alone

Freedom is being every part of me

Without fear that it will somehow cost me

My community

My relationships

My whole story

On my way home last night from Walgreens

Carrying an armful of toilet paper and sparkling waters

I overheard this older gentleman explain to his friend how he and his wife came here 30 years ago and had the greatest time of their lives

They drank Sazaracs and sat in the Courtyard of the two sisters

And just had a ball

The amount of times I’ve pondered the meaning behind the nightly playlist at Bon Ton Prime Rib feels significant here

The businesses that feel sought after right now (in New Orleans Tourism land) are the ones that transport Baby Boomers to their youth

To decades past

Like the 80’s

And 70’s

And 90’s

They want to return

After 30 years

A phrase I hear so often in the weeks before Jazz fest

That it’s like

DAMN how can the present dare

Come even close to the past?

And also

Yikes that’s so different from what all my French Quarter business owner friends sell

Or is it?

Perhaps they’ve all encountered this and gone

What can we create for these people specifically looking for this

Trip down memory lane

What if they follow the yellow brick road to the hippie Statue of Liberty

Will they keep walking and find themselves inside

Disco Warehouse?

Will the steak taste like it did 30,40 years ago?

Will it all

Live up to expectations

Will we do a good job for them

Will the wine they order ‘be right’?

I don’t know

But this all puts in perspective what the people who are spending the most money are in search of

I wonder how this realization will impact what I do here

It’s about to be actual Jazz Fest

I’m going to blink and it’s going to be here

And Stevie Nicks is performing

Photo by Parker Galloway

What is that midday tired thing about

When you just would rather

Lay horizontal in your bed

But it’s nearing the end of your first shift out of two for the day

And you could run home, meditate, and then run back or

You could find some middle of the afternoon meditative activity on this block

And an espresso

From your next job

Maybe I’ll go stop by my friend’s store across the street and leave the nap for

Sleep

As much as I long for it

There is a dinner service between me and my next lounge

It will be much sweeter because I fucking

Didn’t give up

I watch consumers all day like I used to watch TV as a child

And by watching I mean

Serving

Or being the conduit between them and whatever it is that they want right now

Today was a slow one

It usually is

It’s Monday
I got to read for basically 8 hours straight with a few interruptions

But that never happens

Most of the time, they are coming for their lattes

Their espressos

Their room keys

Their bottles of wine

Their poached Lousiana Shrimps

Whatever

It’s sometimes maddening

My anxiety spikes

A few weeks ago, I made a post about how I wasn’t feeling my best before Easter weekend service but I summoned the courage anyway

I’m not the only one I know who feels this way

Consumers

To want

To take

To get

To want something else

To crave

To have it immediately

We’re all addicted to our every desire

Especially the little ones that come up like eating, drinking, shitting, or pissing

I often get asked

Where is the bathroom

I have what I say memorized like an actor memorizes a monologue

I get a lot of people trying to sneak using the bathroom at the restaurant especially

I am blown away by the levels to which people are willing to stoop for that particular deception

I see people of all ages getting away with so much

Consumers

We are taught

It’s right

It’s our right

By society to take

And my job is to give and give and give and give

For money

And give

When my partner and I are together

And off the clock

We both are so used to giving for a living

We kind of sit there and just be when it’s just us

Of course we both want to keep doing what we know we are good at and that works

But we’ve both realized we kind of have to

Chill

And stop

The machine’s not going

We can just play

Enjoy

Listen to the birds

Sip coffee

Not buy anything ourselves

Or buy one thing and really truly enjoy it

There’s nothing that makes me more sad than watching two people at dinner together and both of them are on their phones

As if

This is just what we do

I could never

When I was a kid, I hated that it felt like life was just a series of changing the channel

Writing, for me, is like diving deep into all the places that I scratch the surface of while living every day life

Now people are like this fascinating show to me

Including

Myself

Consumers everywhere

People aren’t allowed to express themselves in other places

So they come here

So everything

Especially the weekend is at fever pitch

It’s always somebody’s first day

Or last

And they want to make the most of it

I work in The French Quarter aka the heart of the noise

My baby works in The Central Business district

The lungs

These people descend upon us

Most nights of the week

Hungry

For dinner

And we deliver with charm

But sometimes they just want everything all at once

It’s always quite something when I get to just

Walk home

And not be the one people want something from for a moment

I retreat into myself

I’m no longer the actor

For a spell

I always wanted to know what it was like to be a professional entertainer

Now I know

I am one in every sense of the world

This is the most I have ever done this for money in my entire life

I’m not used to it yet

It still feels like madness

Like hysteria

Like bodies all entangled in each other floating down The River Styx

It’s wild to be in the pit of fire alongside your co-workers

Forging Iron and Steel

Only it’s

Crabcakes

And Mushroom toast

And goblets of WINE

And espresso drinks

I feel like the dwarves at work in their caves before the fucking Lord Of The Rings had to happen and wipe them all out

We are feeding the masses and getting them drunk

To go forth in more revelry

It is constant

Like a meteor on course for earth

Only that’s how we all make a living

Pay our rent

Eat ourselves and stay another day

People aren’t allowed to express themselves other places so in New Orleans they go crazy

We see them every weekend

You do not know what is going on inside of other people

Even the ones who listen to all your secrets

Even those with awards for how good they mix drinks

And how present they are with others

Sometimes

You discover

They cannot bring that same comfort to themselves

Or… they convince themselves they can’t

Until it becomes true

And you find yourself in their apartment weeks after their gone

Looking at their tailored suits

And still feeling them there

None of us knew what was going to happen

We suspected things were

Bad but he seemed like he was headed somewhere

A new city

A different climate

He seemed like he was going

I remember his face at Christmas time as he came out of the elevator on the second floor

He cooked us all Chinese food and though we told him it was delicious

It’s like he was going through the motions

It’s like he wasn’t there

He continued to show up to work

To do his job

To come up with the specials for the night

But there was so much more going on

Than what he felt comfortable

Sharing

I wish I had worked harder

At building trust with him

Maybe he’d still be here

I’m sure all of his co-workers feel that way

That they could have done

More

But it was his silence

About what was really going on

That took him before he was going to

Leave

Adam

I miss you

You were good

We need to build a New Orleans in which people feel comfortable going to each other

When rock bottom

Hits

Instead of this world in which we almost all

Intervened

But we didn’t

We didn’t know how

Our society has forgotten

How to go about those things

Will we ever live in a world again in which we save

One another?

I had a dream last night that I was back at a horrible restaurant that was trying to test me

See how much cruelty I could take

I quit towards the end of the episode but then for some reason, my computer went missing along with my favorite shirts

I was looking for them all frantically when I woke up

My co-worker is watching a reel on Tik Tok about

Something that happened in the Jim Crow days

Workers bodies were found behind a sugar factory in Texas

She said

They worked them to death and buried them where they collapsed

I can’t help but feel like my dreams are connected

To her Tik Tok

This world we live in feels like things are in extremes

Either you work

Or you don’t

And you really work

Or you really don’t

And I’ve been drinking lately

Just a glass of wine

A shift drink a day

But it adds up

I’m gonna stop that

But why was I even doing that in the first place

Was it to cope

With my 12 hour days

I work a number of them every week

I’m on the clock right now while I’m writing this

Kitchen nightmares is the name of Anthony Bourdain’s first book of essays but also

It’s the title of this chapter of my life

Waking or Sleeping

I’m not alone in this

My partner’s here too

With the debt and the time gone

Gone

Hours of life

Sold

to someone else for pay

That’s what that is

That said

Before me is my sparkling water and my James Baldwin anthology

And I can pick it up and read it until a guest walks in

That is a luxury

It’s moment’s like this where I can read and write freely that remind me of how much better this is than being a Film Professor

I can read and write for my own sake

Not my students’

My mind matters again

Not just how effective I am at my job

My value isn’t caught up in The Capitalist Industrial complex anymore

I just gifted free coffees to the jazz musicians who play The Court of Two Sisters next door

I can hear the caffeine fuel their focus and rhythm

And how they’re responding to one another

The tarot card reader down the street is scared

She senses danger but she doesn’t know from where

She’s been coming to us for a safe haven

At the front desk

It’s wild how everybody here on this block has their own kitchen nightmares

The kind of stuff other people read in their leisure on their kindle

Really happens to them on the daily

I started dozing off just then

When will I get some rest and no longer have to be

Playing this character who is always on alert

For some stranger’s imminent problem?

We had two girls from Iran tonight come for dinner

They both looked familiar when they walked in

It was like looking in the mirror

But they were quieter

Sweeter

Mild mannered

They didn’t like the first table where I sat them so I let them pick their table

When it started to rain

At first they wanted to just wait it out

But it kept coming

I helped them move their appetizer inside

And their big bottle of still water

They smiled and laughed and stayed for probably two hours

They asked for more bread

I put the order in and returned with what they requested

They asked if they could get separate checks

Because it was slow from the rain, the team took the time to itemize it

When they finally checked out

45 minutes later

They were talking with the server about how she was 2% something

I waited til’ the opportune to ask what

They said

Persian

I replied

Oh I’m half Persian

They looked at me smiling

And there was a silence

“Do you speak Farsi?”

I said

Nooo

I grew up with the Irish German Catholic side of the family

The server laughed

Knowing in American fashion precisely what I met

They still looked at me like I was a piece of their home

In that instant, I didn’t feel the weight of what had just occurred but

Later

It resounded

Those sweet, kind women just survived a revolution

And are here in The United States

In New Orleans

Visiting

Wow

Those mild mannered

Femmes braved the total blackout

And survived

And are having dinner here

And splitting checks

And laughing and

Enjoying each other’s company

And then leaving us 5 star reviews

I hope they stumble upon this piece somewhere out there on the Internet

And I hope they fully realize that it was pretty meaningful to me to meet them too

Even though in the morning

I was all a jokester

Very American

And genuinely meaning it when I said as they left

“Have a nice night!”

Apparently

The coffee shop where I sit most mornings was once

Room 9

Where Tennessee Williams would stay while he was writing Streetcar

He lived across the street at 722 Toulouse

Lol

Okay Tenn

That’s wild though

Of all the places in all the world

I found myself

Here

Sin Black is probably reading this and laughing somewhere

She called him my sensei first

I haven’t seen anything overt but

I feel Mr. Williams around

Not in the charismatic

Ultra gay

Jovial form he is often shrouded in

But in the

Hyper anxious

Aries who just wants to swim

Quiet

Young soul that he always was

Listening

Observing

Wishing he wasn’t so addicted to the booze

The cigs

He’ll keep the coffee

It feels like he never left the Quarter

He just went on and on

Eating at diners

Swimming at The New Orleans Athletic Club

Thinking

Walking

Writing

Talking to people he already knows

Or standing near them at least while they go about the remainder of their lives

I bet he hangs out at the home of that singer who used to be with the owner of Antoine’s

She invited me into her home once because I was loitering on her steps before a real estate showing and I think she thought I seemed interesting

I hope I run into her again

Tennessee Williams sure does too

I’m sure

But in a human way where she can like

See him

I used to wander

The Lower East Side

New York City

2009 - 2010 every day

Pretty much

Okay whenever I was there

Which was also significantly 2011

I’d get on the A train in the morning and head downtown and get lost

I type this as I interrupt a ghost tour crowd while walking through the French Quarter towards The Marigny to treat myself to a little dinner before our staff party karaoke night at the restaurant

I currently look like an asshole who’s staring at their phone who doesn’t care about anything or anyone around her

But in reality I am paying attention

It’s like performance art

Giving off the impression that I’m not

During these wanderings in The Big Apple during my early 20’s

That’s when I learned how to tap into my own jazz

The city blocks and my leather jacket and my earnestness and my unwashed bleach blonde hair jammed

Danced to terrible whiskey sours

At legendary music spots where I first saw performers I’d do Malort shots with 13 years later in Chicago

I just interviewed a guy who grew up in Greenwich Village and then also eventually chose to move here

New Orleans and the FQ specifically

He also instantly understood the frenzy that seems to only exist in these two places

Two thirds of the jazz circuit

Paths paved by many illustrious musicians over the past century and then some

I just crossed over into The Marigny on my journey

Just passed R Bar where Shia La I don’t need to finish that sentence punched some man someone I work with knows during Mardis Gras

I need to pause and check my directions because I think I need to turn here

I was right

Elysian Fields is that way

That way to paradise

There’s something about writing while traveling that reminds me of On The Road

The Jack Kerouac shadow side of myself that’s never that far away

I always liked the act of trying to write while in motion

I discover so much more when I wander

My baby has been reminding me of that lately

I am so grateful that he appeared in my life like a freight train in the night while walking seemingly abandoned tracks

That then slowed down so I could specifically hop on and ride somewhere entirely new

Oh shit

There’s that Thai place I’ve always wanted to try

Should I go there instead

Naw but soon

God it’s so nice and quiet over here

Crossing Elysian Fields now

Wandering is like

My native language

It feels so easy to speak it

My job as host is to remain calm in chaotic situations

I see where all my training for that came from

Now

(So I ended up skipping Elysian Bar and eating at the taco pop up at Anna’s. Lol. Wander!)

Lately, something exciting has been happening

Words have failed me

Circumstances have grown too

Complex

Nuanced

New

For me to easily summarize

At times I’ve felt inadequate

A writer should have the words but

Most words feel

Like they ruin everything

The way colleagues of mine express themselves on Substack has been

Almost so much that they no longer have meaning

If I read another think piece about the open road being a sort of

Open ended paradise

I’m gonna throw up

I love that I am venturing beyond my own cliches

My own loops

My own stereotypes

I’ve written on my Substack for long enough that I’m tired of how simple life appears to be on there

I’m so hopeful

So destined

All of the time

It’s like

I no longer need this crutch of an attitude to continue forward

I’m learning to accept more of what’s not

Black and white

And also

Constantly growing

Shifting

Moving like a motion picture

Not standing still enough for words

I’m starting to question what I think writing is even for

Which I am pleased with

I’m shedding this

This brand of myself

As an artist

We’re all artists

Why do I need the title?

I have found myself lately asking better questions

Of myself and others than having good answers

Cool

The wholesomeness of the Internet feels like a version of me that’s been deleted

Even though I see myself right there

In fragments of my own past story

It no longer owns me now

Somehow

Words are more of this malleable thing that

Fills in only what isn’t spoken with my body

Like how I was told good film writing should be: Visual storytelling mostly then dialogue should only be

What context illuminates the situation that body language can’t provide

I’ve come into a habit of sending my lover wordless videos of me in nature after what is becoming our daily mid day phone call

He doesn’t make me feel like I need to explain myself ever

Our dynamic has begun to show me all the ways in which

How we communicate out in public

In society

With business associates

Or strangers

Or even friends

Is so

Overcompensating

For something that’s just not there

A caring about the other person in the moment

When you don’t just want to be present with them

You try and entertain them

Mostly to entertain yourself because the connection

Isn’t really there

Meanwhile both of you are working so hard to prove that you’re valuable

I find myself still doing it sometimes but then I encounter somebody who’s deeper in that beat than I ever was

And I remember oh

This isn’t necessary anymore

Let’s keep working on finding a whole new purpose for these words that come out of my mouth

Or onto the screen

Photo by Parker Galloway

It’s nearly 11:30pm

I just finished deep cleaning our bathroom

I promised my roommate I would

I got off work at 10pm and I texted briefly with my boyfriend

Bid him sweet dreams

Walked my French Quarter walk home

And got to more work

While having a little glass of shift wine and blasting Mark Lanegan

New Orleans nights are not so glamorous

Or drunken

Like the tourists fantasize about what it must be like to live here

Sure

We put on a show during the day and for dinner at night

But then we clean

We roll silverware

We communicate with our loved ones

We make plans to go to the pool Monday night with our friend who’s a Manager at a coffee shop

We make plans for a double date next Wednesday to go see a play and probably have dinner before hand somewhere

We get ready for bed while the crowd chatters

Just getting their night started at the dive bar below us

As I’m going to sleep I often think

Will I fall asleep faster if I put on the Youtube rainstorm sounds to drown out the revelry under my feet?

Lately I have

It’s Spring so everybody is fucking excited

And horny

And I’m happy for them but I also have to be at my other job at 9am

And wake up at 7am to shower because I didn’t feel like doing so tonight

The bathroom smells like Comet

I saw a one person show about Tennessee Williams last night

And through his eyes, this place seems entirely romantic

But it’s also a place where we live life

I’m so glad I know it for real now in my way

There’s so much more to

A New Orleans Night than the cliches

Though

The French Quarter really needs more restaurants and bars inspired

Not overtly but as an homage

To Tenn Williams’ quarter lifestyle

Too bad he didn’t get to die on Dumaine Street like I overheard last night that he wanted

Then again

Maybe his spirit never left

His neighborhood

Now it’s mine
Naw

Now it’s ours