Several Fridays ago at temple, our Rabbi implored the congregation to consider offering their spare bedrooms, mattresses, and floors to the young Jewish teenagers who would be converging upon the city for the first week of August for an arts convention. Ann and I thought about it for a little while and decided we would make two girls from suburban Massachusetts feel very lucky that they were not stuck out in Metairie watching age-appropriate TV with a retired couple and their small yappy dogs.
Despite my best intentions, I have forgotten what it is like to be fourteen. I thought I was going to be the cool older sister figure; instead, I am the jabbering weirdo aunt. "Do you guys have any opinions about this?" I ask the girls as we munch our cereal to an NPR report on the Sotomayor confirmations. One looks at me blankly. The other one answers honestly, "Um, maybe. Wait, I wasn't paying attention." I explain that the radio is reporting on the judicial confirmation hearings. "Oh. Wait, is she black? And she got sexually harassed or something?" While almost two decades too late, she is at least on top of the concept of confirmation hearings, which is all opening the opening I need to drone on for twenty minutes about the importance of a Supreme Court nomination. "Don't they teach this stuff in school?" They shake their heads almost imperceptibly and before I can go into my speech about when I was their age Itai saves me by doing something cute.
Lest I become a worse experience than the aforementioned ancient household in Metairie, I decide to make them the coolest kids on the block. On Host Family Night, we take a trip up Bourbon Street on our way to Cafe Du Monde for beignets. The girls are psyched because apart from being the murder and flood death capital of the country, New Orleans is known outside of New Orleans for Bourbon Street alone. (By way of explanation, a friend and I were visiting a client in a hospital that is forty minutes, or a single bridge-length, outside the city. On our way in, after checking our drivers licenses for evidence of god-knows-what, the security guard asks suspiciously, "Are you really from the city?" And then, as his narrowed eyes widen, "How bad is it?" We suggest that he will not die if he checks it out for himself, but he does not believe us.)
We park by Cafe Du Monde and take Iberville St. in, where the first noticeable business is an establishment called Bangkok Spa. Despite all appearances to the contrary, darkened glass windows and the odd bullet hole, a small neon sign flashes Open under a large painted sign advertising Body Rubs. "Is that really a spa?" one of the girls, Z., asks me. "Sure it is," I say, "depending on your definition of spa." As we pass, two Rubenesque ladies in tube tops wave us into the Spa next door. "Hey baby," one calls to the girls. "They are recruiting you," jokes Ann. "Is that really a spa?" Z. asks again, this time a little more forcefully. "I think," I say carefully, "it is probably a little more than a spa. For men." "Ha!" A., the other one, says. "I thought so!"
We continue onto Bourbon Street, where the girls go quiet, their affected boredom belied by saucer eyes. "I thought it would be like, more shopping," says A. as an elderly black man approaches her waving a 5x5 sign that reads ONE DOLLAR BEER TO GO! just outside the Hustler Lounge. Although it is full early-evening light on a Tuesday night, the street is already filling with all manner of college boys, middle-aged Midwestern couples, and conventioneers just starting out on the most anticipated drinking binges of their lives. Live jazz floats out the window of a bar advertising air conditioning until, just a moment later, it is drowned out by the tinny buzz of an already-sloshed cover band rocking out the tourists trapped by Hurricanes. Vendors sell ten dollar Mardi Gras beads and t-shirts bearing crass, booze-themed slogans. We are slouching toward Bethlehem with two very surprised underage lasses in tow.
After being creepily solicited for donations by "volunteers" from "Meals on Wheels", our journey down Bourbon Street ends and we enter the family-friendly territory of Cafe Du Monde. The girls seem far more excited about the piles of white powder atop glistening fried dough than they were about the piles of strip-club fliers atop streets vaguely glistening with last night's vomit.
The only hint of excitement emerges upon running into another teen from the program. "Did you go to Bourbon?" Z. asked her. "Not yet," the girl replies, obviously meaning not ever. "You?"
"Oh, we already went," Z. counters coolly. "It was alright." Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not believe a teenage girl could turn such a shade of green. As she walks away, A. says, "Did you see her host mother? More like a host grandmother!" Success.
And this morning on the car ride to their drop-off point, they cannot stop talking about it. "Remember how we got recruited by a hooker?" A. asks Z. "That was so crazy!" Z. replies. "I bet no one else got to go. Let's ask everyone!" I feel a little panicky inside. "Just be sure to tell them you didn't actually go in any of these places," I plead. "Sure," Z. says unconvincingly. A. does not respond because she is already on the phone. "Mom! Guess what! We went to Bourbon Street!" she announces. "And guess what else! I got recruited by a hooker!"
If you need me, I'll be the cool older sister figure sitting in an Orleans Parish Prison holding cell, awaiting my trial on child-endangerment charges.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
I never understood what people meant by, "I'll pray for you." You're going to ask Jesus to find me a job? Light some candles and send a smoke signal to the divine so I might trip over some extra cash in the street? Those are the more benign examples, because as I understand it Jesus is regularly called upon to shine away the gay with holy light. The concept of praying for someone else has always been completely foreign to me if not outright offensive.
Ann and I started going to temple on the occasional Friday night. The synagogue we chose is quite liberal, the Rabbi young and smart. Several weeks ago her sermon wove the story of Moses's lesser brother Aaron and his wayward sons (God burned them alive after they interrupted some fancy ceremony, and there was much rejoicing) together with the Tragic Tale of Michael Jackson as she asked us to reflect upon the sum of a person: What do you call a charlatan whose great charisma brings joy to an anxious people? What do you do with a pedophile whose great talent inspires millions and spans generations? She spoke of her husband, a teacher, who used to teach at a high school for young sex offenders. His students made great personal and academic strides of which he could be proud, only to turn around and rape another student the next day. Where do we put these broken children?
Mi sheberakh avoteinu mekor habrakha l’imoteinu
May the Source of strength
Who blessed the ones before us
Help us find the courage
To make our lives a blessing,
And let us say: Amen.
Mi sheberakh imoteinu mekor habrakha l’avoteinu
Bless those in need of healing With refuah shleima:
The renewal of body,
The renewal of spirit,
And let us say: Amen
We sing it every Friday, whether it is a prayer to a higher power or simply a pretty sing-a-long. We are instructed simply to think of someone, perhaps ourselves, who may be in need of healing. And I sit in the quiet and grace of the soft light and high ceilings, the company of people gathered to share in celebrating the joy of a week past and another to come, and I think about the boy who hates the world so much he cannot stop destroying anyone who comes close enough to touch him, and the girl who cannot be left alone for five minutes to repeat her past trauma with objects that must be surgically removed, the homeless woman living in filth inside the old city hall building who found another with slit wrists and throat, supposedly self-inflicted, the woman who lived for years with the smell of death hanging like a fog off the rotting body of her boyfriend's wife, which he'd dismembered and hidden in a trunk, and the children sitting blankly inside moldy classrooms while their parents drink themselves stupid and the death row inmate who has been all of them and finally, I know what it means to pray for somebody.
What do you do with the atheist who finds herself praying?
Ann and I started going to temple on the occasional Friday night. The synagogue we chose is quite liberal, the Rabbi young and smart. Several weeks ago her sermon wove the story of Moses's lesser brother Aaron and his wayward sons (God burned them alive after they interrupted some fancy ceremony, and there was much rejoicing) together with the Tragic Tale of Michael Jackson as she asked us to reflect upon the sum of a person: What do you call a charlatan whose great charisma brings joy to an anxious people? What do you do with a pedophile whose great talent inspires millions and spans generations? She spoke of her husband, a teacher, who used to teach at a high school for young sex offenders. His students made great personal and academic strides of which he could be proud, only to turn around and rape another student the next day. Where do we put these broken children?
Mi sheberakh avoteinu mekor habrakha l’imoteinu
May the Source of strength
Who blessed the ones before us
Help us find the courage
To make our lives a blessing,
And let us say: Amen.
Mi sheberakh imoteinu mekor habrakha l’avoteinu
Bless those in need of healing With refuah shleima:
The renewal of body,
The renewal of spirit,
And let us say: Amen
We sing it every Friday, whether it is a prayer to a higher power or simply a pretty sing-a-long. We are instructed simply to think of someone, perhaps ourselves, who may be in need of healing. And I sit in the quiet and grace of the soft light and high ceilings, the company of people gathered to share in celebrating the joy of a week past and another to come, and I think about the boy who hates the world so much he cannot stop destroying anyone who comes close enough to touch him, and the girl who cannot be left alone for five minutes to repeat her past trauma with objects that must be surgically removed, the homeless woman living in filth inside the old city hall building who found another with slit wrists and throat, supposedly self-inflicted, the woman who lived for years with the smell of death hanging like a fog off the rotting body of her boyfriend's wife, which he'd dismembered and hidden in a trunk, and the children sitting blankly inside moldy classrooms while their parents drink themselves stupid and the death row inmate who has been all of them and finally, I know what it means to pray for somebody.
What do you do with the atheist who finds herself praying?
Sunday, May 03, 2009
arrival
Yesterday, as suggested by a new friend, I attended Jane's Walk in a neighborhood that would euphemistically be described as up-and-coming. I don't usually participate in random group activities so I had no idea what to expect, but I was excited to get a look at a part of town that I would never go to at night, by myself, or on purpose.
First, let me describe the crowd. The Jane's Walk representatives introduced themselves as a married lesbian couple originally from Canada. Were any of you aware that New Orleans is the lesbian capital of the universe? Prior to moving I lamented to Ann that we would never make any lesbian friends in Louisiana. (She then pointed out to me that we have no lesbian friends to begin with, which apart from being true was completely beside the point.) As of now, less than a week after moving here, I have met more lesbians in this city than in New York, Chicago, and Olympia, WA combined; this includes both of my supervisors at work. My mind is blown.
The majority of the crowd, however, was comprised of obnoxiously earnest Teach For America kids and various other post-collegiate non-profit workers whose current goal in life is to come show New Orleans how to rebuild itself for a few years and then return to a city with a working infrastructure. They'll probably all go to NYU for law school. I had to temper my annoyance by remembering what it was like to be a 22 year old know-it-all. And to their credit, they were way less obnoxious than the guy who literally sweat with excitement when describing the tax incentives for developers to buy up the ghetto and turn it into condos. At least they want to like, teach in the ghetto, make the ghetto less toxic by planting sunflowers (True story! Sunflowers leach lead out of soil.), and perhaps live adjacent to it while pretending they live inside of it.
New Orleans is different than most other major cities in that there is never really a clear delineation between the right and wrong sides of the tracks. A half-block of mansions abuts crumbling facades of abandoned buildings and crackhouses. A five star restaurant sits across the block from a large homeless shelter, which faces the empty lot where the residents of the shelter sleep during the day and stash their belongings. Beyond that lot is a block owned by a church, now defunct, and still beyond is a working dairy that takes up a quarter-mile of the main thoroughfare. Zach, one of the self-professed tour leaders and green non-profit guru, was really down on that dairy. He got schooled by a few of the locals who asked him where else people were supposed to work. Think quick, Zach, how many local residents work at your green non-profit?
In the middle of all this, the junkyard dairy and the queer performance art space under an apartment rehab across from a restaurant that employs former junkies, is an African-American cultural center run by a former administrator at the local public schools, who spoke with us about her work. She produced a play with Eve Ensler about how Katrina affected the women of New Orleans, put it on in front of thousands of people at the Superdome, and sent it to off-Broadway. And on Saturday she sat in her cultural center next to a juvenile justice non-profit just down the road from several men sleeping on the sidewalk still clutching their empty bottles and dreaming about the flood while their children are taught by an ever-changing cast of college grads itching to change the world for a year or two, anyway, and this is where I live now.
First, let me describe the crowd. The Jane's Walk representatives introduced themselves as a married lesbian couple originally from Canada. Were any of you aware that New Orleans is the lesbian capital of the universe? Prior to moving I lamented to Ann that we would never make any lesbian friends in Louisiana. (She then pointed out to me that we have no lesbian friends to begin with, which apart from being true was completely beside the point.) As of now, less than a week after moving here, I have met more lesbians in this city than in New York, Chicago, and Olympia, WA combined; this includes both of my supervisors at work. My mind is blown.
The majority of the crowd, however, was comprised of obnoxiously earnest Teach For America kids and various other post-collegiate non-profit workers whose current goal in life is to come show New Orleans how to rebuild itself for a few years and then return to a city with a working infrastructure. They'll probably all go to NYU for law school. I had to temper my annoyance by remembering what it was like to be a 22 year old know-it-all. And to their credit, they were way less obnoxious than the guy who literally sweat with excitement when describing the tax incentives for developers to buy up the ghetto and turn it into condos. At least they want to like, teach in the ghetto, make the ghetto less toxic by planting sunflowers (True story! Sunflowers leach lead out of soil.), and perhaps live adjacent to it while pretending they live inside of it.
New Orleans is different than most other major cities in that there is never really a clear delineation between the right and wrong sides of the tracks. A half-block of mansions abuts crumbling facades of abandoned buildings and crackhouses. A five star restaurant sits across the block from a large homeless shelter, which faces the empty lot where the residents of the shelter sleep during the day and stash their belongings. Beyond that lot is a block owned by a church, now defunct, and still beyond is a working dairy that takes up a quarter-mile of the main thoroughfare. Zach, one of the self-professed tour leaders and green non-profit guru, was really down on that dairy. He got schooled by a few of the locals who asked him where else people were supposed to work. Think quick, Zach, how many local residents work at your green non-profit?
In the middle of all this, the junkyard dairy and the queer performance art space under an apartment rehab across from a restaurant that employs former junkies, is an African-American cultural center run by a former administrator at the local public schools, who spoke with us about her work. She produced a play with Eve Ensler about how Katrina affected the women of New Orleans, put it on in front of thousands of people at the Superdome, and sent it to off-Broadway. And on Saturday she sat in her cultural center next to a juvenile justice non-profit just down the road from several men sleeping on the sidewalk still clutching their empty bottles and dreaming about the flood while their children are taught by an ever-changing cast of college grads itching to change the world for a year or two, anyway, and this is where I live now.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
packing
When I say I'm packing, I mean my wife is packing while handing me small tasks that she knows I can handle without breaking something or wandering off midstream. This method ensures that our belongings will arrive in New Orleans in roughly the same form as at the beginning of their journey. It also gives her complete control over what goes and stays, which is why I don't get in more trouble for being so unhelpful.
Items I Am Allowed to Bring:
Furniture, dishes, books, clothing, linens, appliances
Items Banned:
Everything Else
The tiny plastic deer I inexplicably stuck into a bubblegum machine ringbox five years ago and buried in a drawer, I have been warned, will not be joining us on our journey. Terribly saddened by the thought of Mysterious Tiny Deer suffocating in a landfill, I brought him to trial the other day and gave him to my coworker. Godspeed, MTD, and may you find your new home in the gross Daley Center carpeting as hospitable as your prior one nestled in a slit of fake red velvet. I'm going to miss the little guy. Now I just need to find a home for the pink-haired Troll doll, the rubber Halloween rat, various and sundry DIY political buttons, letters from people I don't remember, sparkly stickers, half-used cosmetics, and promotional personal massagers.
It is really a shame that I am not allowed to help with packing.
Items I Am Allowed to Bring:
Furniture, dishes, books, clothing, linens, appliances
Items Banned:
Everything Else
The tiny plastic deer I inexplicably stuck into a bubblegum machine ringbox five years ago and buried in a drawer, I have been warned, will not be joining us on our journey. Terribly saddened by the thought of Mysterious Tiny Deer suffocating in a landfill, I brought him to trial the other day and gave him to my coworker. Godspeed, MTD, and may you find your new home in the gross Daley Center carpeting as hospitable as your prior one nestled in a slit of fake red velvet. I'm going to miss the little guy. Now I just need to find a home for the pink-haired Troll doll, the rubber Halloween rat, various and sundry DIY political buttons, letters from people I don't remember, sparkly stickers, half-used cosmetics, and promotional personal massagers.
It is really a shame that I am not allowed to help with packing.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
the hunt
Yesterday I got an email from my law school Alma Mater entitled, "Job Search Tips Resources for Recent Graduates". Put aside the questionable sentence structure for a moment and it's still alarming. I graduated from a Top 5 Law School in 2005; the email offered help to graduates of 2004 and beyond.
It gives me great pleasure to report that when called upon to do more than call in the occasional alumni favor for the few unlucky soon-to-be-unemployed 3-Ls, the career services office still gives great advice. For example, "re-skilling," which is a "new catch phrase," should help you get a new job. "Re-skilling" is to "finding a new job" as "Re-gifting" is to "passing on the fruitcake to a third home." After the hurricane, I was given similarly useful advice. "Potential employers are going to want to know," they told me gravely, "why you left your job in New Orleans after only few months. So be sure to have a good answer ready." This warning proved eerily prophetic when, interview after interview, potential employers would without fail launch a variation of that very question. "We're really looking for someone with a few years' experience. But we just wanted to ask you, what was Katrina like?"
I feel for my private sector brethren. Being unemployed, for me, was a shot of tequila in one hand and my pathetic resume in the other. I double-fisted it for nine solid months before I was humbled enough, broke enough, and bored enough to apply for a job at Kaplan teaching students how to take the LSAT. I think I would have been a great role model for those kids, or at least a terrifying glimpse into their futures, but alas, fate intervened and my current job fell into my lap. I will always think of Kaplan as the time I almost had the opportunity to drive dozens of potential lawyers into social work, banking, and bartending.
The hilarity aside, I'm not sure how well I would come through being unemployed again, which is why I've been waiting for my phone to ring and checking my email obsessively for five days now. I cannot stand the thought of moving without having a job offer. It literally keeps me up at night. I think of this family at it just breaks my heart, because I know.
It gives me great pleasure to report that when called upon to do more than call in the occasional alumni favor for the few unlucky soon-to-be-unemployed 3-Ls, the career services office still gives great advice. For example, "re-skilling," which is a "new catch phrase," should help you get a new job. "Re-skilling" is to "finding a new job" as "Re-gifting" is to "passing on the fruitcake to a third home." After the hurricane, I was given similarly useful advice. "Potential employers are going to want to know," they told me gravely, "why you left your job in New Orleans after only few months. So be sure to have a good answer ready." This warning proved eerily prophetic when, interview after interview, potential employers would without fail launch a variation of that very question. "We're really looking for someone with a few years' experience. But we just wanted to ask you, what was Katrina like?"
I feel for my private sector brethren. Being unemployed, for me, was a shot of tequila in one hand and my pathetic resume in the other. I double-fisted it for nine solid months before I was humbled enough, broke enough, and bored enough to apply for a job at Kaplan teaching students how to take the LSAT. I think I would have been a great role model for those kids, or at least a terrifying glimpse into their futures, but alas, fate intervened and my current job fell into my lap. I will always think of Kaplan as the time I almost had the opportunity to drive dozens of potential lawyers into social work, banking, and bartending.
The hilarity aside, I'm not sure how well I would come through being unemployed again, which is why I've been waiting for my phone to ring and checking my email obsessively for five days now. I cannot stand the thought of moving without having a job offer. It literally keeps me up at night. I think of this family at it just breaks my heart, because I know.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Motion
It's been a long time since I've introduced myself to a new blog. I started on Livejournal when I was 21, and being terrified of change like any good Type A- (hyper-neurotic but too lazy to correct the anxiety-producing situation) I'll probably continue to keep a Livejournal until the day I die.
2009 marks the fourth year that my life has been on hold. My wife and I showed impeccable timing when we moved to New Orleans during the summer of 2005. Several months later, George W. Bush was circling overhead in Air Force One and strumming a banjo of shame. We were in Illinois, hiding from my parents in a spare bedroom while they watched footage of our new home sinking, again and again in that endless awful loop, on a fifty inch screen. We've been more or less stuck doing the same since then, but not for much longer.
I've decided I deserve to renew my life. I can start writing again. My career will truly begin, and though I'm not sure where it's headed I'm looking at some exciting options. New Orleans and I are works in progress, and I think we have much to offer each other. I can't wait to get started.
2009 marks the fourth year that my life has been on hold. My wife and I showed impeccable timing when we moved to New Orleans during the summer of 2005. Several months later, George W. Bush was circling overhead in Air Force One and strumming a banjo of shame. We were in Illinois, hiding from my parents in a spare bedroom while they watched footage of our new home sinking, again and again in that endless awful loop, on a fifty inch screen. We've been more or less stuck doing the same since then, but not for much longer.
I've decided I deserve to renew my life. I can start writing again. My career will truly begin, and though I'm not sure where it's headed I'm looking at some exciting options. New Orleans and I are works in progress, and I think we have much to offer each other. I can't wait to get started.
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