You Can't Take the Sky from Me.

Oh, hi, Life. Didn't see you there.

So it turns out I am graduating in a month. Graduating from college. This tidbit is only now beginning to hit me/sink in, and, looking back over the past few months I'm realizing how determinedly I have been sticking my head in the sand to avoid the reality of it. Hell--the past four years, even. Up until about last week, I've been in the mindset of oh I have plenty of time, plenty plenty. Oops.

I mean, I have my "plan," i.e., the spiel I spit out at well-meaning adults (ugh I guess I'll have to be one of those too now) when they inevitably ask brightly, "So, what do you want to do?" It goes basically as follows:

Oh, you know, I was planning on moving down to New Orleans for a year or so and just live for a while...take some time off so I don't burn out...and I'll start looking at grad schools while I'm down there...oh, no, I'm not sure what I'd go for, that's part of the reason I'm taking time off, y'know, so I don't get stuck in the wrong thing. I dunno, an MFA or something in linguistics. Yeah, I like words...Also, I really want to go out of state for grad school or whatever, really get out of here. I was born and raised in Louisiana, but I feel like if, y'know, I'm acting like a "writer" then it would be a crime not to like in New Orleans for a while...I mean, it's such a dynamic place, and I feel like I'm at the right "dynamic" time in my life to really be there, y'know?
[If they press me on the grad school issue I usually laugh nervously and mumble something about Boulder or Chicago]

Not that the above isn't true. That is, in fact, the current plan. I just have A) no idea how to get from point here to point New Orleans or B) from point New Orleans to point grad school. I know that there are plenty of resources available to me, especially regarding the grad school thing, but actually beginning to confront the looming precipice of Real Life (ha) by actually thinking about jobs and apartments (I've been looking, but I mean for serious) and then actually looking at admissions for grad programs... the latter made me physically want to vomit. Everywhere. My mind was completely filled with a horrified crescendo of I am not ready for this. I should have been publishing things. Or at least writing things. And most especially, I should have been working harder. For the future.  Looking at the linguistics programs especially made me want to faint/disintegrate. So much is necessary. Always.

Tentative new plan: Two years in New Orleans (an additional one while I wait for Boy to graduate) building my portfolio etc, then MFA (two years), then Ph.D. in Linguistics (five+ years). That puts off Real Life for as long as possible, right?

Every time I start to panic about this (which is pretty much all of the times now), I try to take a step back and convince myself that I am not, in fact, crossing some giant, scary threshold into Real Life. Actually, I have been living for about twenty-one years now, so I should really have plenty of practice at the whole life thing. And I've been supporting myself (pretty damn well, I'd say) for the past four of those years. Dammit, I've been living this whole time!

If only I could make this realization stick.

2012: "We Stopped."

So, Happy New Year and stuff! I can hear people still (illegally) shooting off fireworks, so I guess their party must still be going-- well, kudos to them. More partying all around! On my part, the turning of the calendar (oops, still literally have to do that to my own hard copy) was a shockingly serene and pleasant experience.

Went down to New Orleans with some friends, which on New Year's Eve (or anything remotely resembling a holiday, really) is usually a crazy party chaos-pit of an experience. And, okay, there were a lot of your typical "crazy party" things. Noise! Liquor! Lights! Absurdly tiny sparkly dresses and way-too-high heels! Beer! Liquor! Sparklers! Liquor! We toured from Uptown all the way through and around the French Quarter, a nice if exhaustive route. And as I glided (almost completely sober!) through this mess of good-natured debauchery, I had a thought that is pretty unusual for me at the most low-key of times and much more so at the present moment:

There is no anxiety. I am calm, with a firm grip on the reigns, and I am having a damn good time.

And it was true. Despite my distressingly poor ability to navigate even a simple grid of streets, the erratic temperature and baromentric conditions in the Quarter, and ragingly drunk tourists and glaring police everywhere, I was fine. I was not panicking, or even nervous. Not about getting accosted, or getting vomit on my shoes (though I was very sensible and careful to avoid both of these situations), or meeting up with the 572 other friends roaming the streets of New Orleans--even having a destination seemed pretty unimportant. This, I must emphasize, is a pretty big deal for me. Even the most mundane plans cause a rumbling of anxiety in my gut, and any kind of "adventure" tends to send it clawing its way up my spinal cord. If I don't have at the very least a written schedule of activities with accompanying time estimates and maps, things go downhill for me and my ability to enjoy the evening very quickly. So aimlessly wandering with my Boy and two friends alongside packs of feral party-goers through the belly of New Orleans without worry? Kind of a big deal. Starting 2012 off right. And hey, it's the last New Year's, so why not?

In the end, we got to our destination and beyond, and then back to the car and subsequent sleeping arrangements without any sort of injury or major expenditure (besides some serious walking time). Pretty damn good. Woke up this morning (um, afternoon), grabbed coffee from my new favorite cafe Uptown, Z'otz, then headed over to my lovely friend Mandi's house for some tasty New Year Gumbo. And still made it back in time for Boyfriend to get to work. New Year Success!

Resolution: Er, be better, I suppose. I bought a pack of foil stars, and am going to mark my calendar with them when I do "good things" -- exercise, make art/writing, do food things that are tasty cheap AND healthy. We shall see!

And lastly (and randomly): I don't know if I'll ever get married. Hell, I don't know if I even want to get married. And I know the following conflicts with my compulsive anxiety as described above. But if I do get married, I can only hope that the wedding will be as amazing as Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's was. Yes, I teared up a bit. Totally worth it.

Singing the (Lack of) Blues

I stare out the window, eyes bleary, waiting for the traffic light to change. Baton Rouge, I’ve discovered, is no place to have the blues. Almost every Saturday the streets flood with people armed to the teeth with purple, gold, beer, and so much Tiger spirit it’s a wonder they’re not constantly pissing themselves. There’s no subway system to ride and muse upon how your life got so damn bad. Buildings are too far apart to have appropriately atmospheric alleyways, but far enough apart to make contemplative strolls for another bottle of whiskey all but impossible. In short, it’s a place of frustration, not of the blues. But with a decidedly un-bluesy optimism, I keep looking for them.

There’s only one 24-hour diner in this city—excluding, of course, the IHOPs and Waffle Houses. I keep getting my hopes up for some kind of emotional epiphany in Louie’s, but they have yet to be fulfilled. Still, it’s just dingy enough to have a depressing sort of atmosphere—sickly lighting, the down-on-his-luck guy in the corner with some cold coffee, that kind of thing. Not to mention the ridiculously improbable mural which does kind of put you in a hopeless state if you look at it long enough. But unfortunately, as it is the only 24-hour diner, it is inevitably overrun by figures that don’t fit into my smoky, bluesy picture—college students. Frat boys loading up on omelettes after a night hitting the Tigerland bars, Sororitail with their way-too-short skirts and shrill shrieks. High school students, too, all horseplay and guffaws, up way past their bedtime. All of this may be a little condescending and more than a little hypocritical. After all, they have just as much right as I do to be in the diner, and I myself am a college student. Come down to it, I was one of those high schoolers, too, and not long ago at all. So I begrudge these people a place in my universe and accept Louie’s as a compromise between the diner it is and the birthplace of disconsolate artistry I want it to be.

To be honest, I myself am not the typical conduit of the blues. In fact, my demographic— white young woman from a fairly decent family—is usually barred from the genre. And really, my life is going rather well. Of course, there’s always the option of going on a drug-addled, roller-coaster-like bender for the next couple of decades. Then my claim to the blues wouldn’t really be in question. And if that happens, well…great. I guess? But it’s not exactly the route I plan on taking. So what then? Will I ever be able to know the blues?

Well, I could always move to New Orleans. Indeed, I plan on doing so. No one, really, can dispute the validity of the Big Easy as a “blues city”. Its florid, decaying elegance and history littered with… well, the litter of human experience gives it a sense of decadent hopelessness other cities seem to lack. What I wouldn’t give to have a room above the French Quarter, with a balcony on which I could languish and watch the world pass by… I’d have to evacuate during Mardi Gras, though. The influx of frat boys from all around the country would be a bit unbearable. But the rest of my year could consist of too much coffee and too many cigarettes, not enough sleep, and with any luck (or lack of it) pages upon pages of the best writing the world has yet to see. Maybe in that stifling moist air with the wail of a soprano sax carrying to me from the levee, my muse will finally wander in and decide to get down to work. But for now, the light turns green, and as yet another SUV cuts me off, I realize I have quite a ways to go before I can sing the blues.