the Nixionary

What happens when you are actually leaving a place is that all of your romantic notions are swallowed whole by boxes, to-do lists, and contradictions in character.  Remember how I wrote that leaving should be a celebration?  Fat chance.  I was wrong on that one.  Packing up and leaving a place sucks, no matter the [...]

Because of the doctor shortage in New Orleans, there are no physicians who will see me for strep-like symptoms for TWO WEEKS. So, I opted, this afternoon, for the new “Urgent” Care Center on Napoleon and Claiborne.
After filling out paperwork that had been copied halfway onto the page, and halfway off, I waited 20 [...]

After more list-making with Kate, I realized that in careful, numerical preparation for leaving a place I’ve been for so long, I feel a strange disconnection from all of my already-said goodbyes. I think sometimes we are so focused on the process of packing up and encapsulating the having-been-in-a-place, that we aren’t even aware of [...]

I love lists. I usually try to spend more time checking things off of them than making them, but the truth is, I’m better at the latter activity. That’s the beauty and the beast of lists– you might finish one, but there are always more opportunities, waiting like patient soldiers, to be [...]

Bad things happen. Like my car got towed. Like I got rear-ended by a big red pick-up truck and the man who hit me wasn’t very nice. Like the lady at Jazzfest who sold me a bogus ticket for $35 and continued to talk to me sweetly for 10 minutes after [...]