sturtle [dot] com

I’ve been busier than usual lately.

It’s not my day job; things are pretty manageable there right now, almost slow. (Almost.) No, I’ve been preoccupied with other things–namely (a) prepping for Carnival, especially the Satyricon bal masque, and (b) a new blogging gig.

Luckily, much of the ball stuff is out of my hands at the moment. My biggest costume-related duty is done–building the frame for the headpiece/backpiece–and my capable friend Brian will finish the outfit himself. That leaves me to focus on table decorations and simpler, smaller things. Oh: and the ball program. Since I’m the only one in my krewe who’s even heard of InDesign, the program falls in my lap every year. It wouldn’t be so bad if the queens sending me ads understood the difference between 72dpi and 300dpi and also what I mean by jargony phrases like, “I CANNOT USE THIS DOCUMENT YOU CREATED IN WORD/WORD PERFECT/MICROSOFT PUBLISHER. IT IS CRAP. TRY AGAIN.”

The blogging thing is far more time-consuming. I’m writing for a niche site, which sounds like it’d be limited in scope, but it’s a niche that I don’t know much about, so the learning curve has been steep. The industry is enormous, and I spend a lot of time reading just to familiarize myself with things. (I’ve got 40 news feeds in the folder of my RSS reader, some of which are massive info dumps like CNN. The flow never ends.) When I finally get around to writing my allotted four or five posts a day, it’s slow going. I’m constantly checking my facts, and when I’m in a hurry and don’t have time to check, I’ll leave things intentionally vague. Neither is especially good.

Part of the reason my friend hired me for the gig is because he wants to perk up the site’s content; he knows I worked for Gawker, so I can do short, snarky, and pithy. Only problem is, sometimes an item doesn’t lend itself to short, snarky, and pithy. Sometimes and item demands extensive examination. Like, you know, news. Which leaves me screwed.

All that said, I’m really enjoying the gig. I’m remembering a lot of stuff from childhood (when I was more engaged in the subject), I’m learning a lot about the industry, and I think I’m becoming a better writer in the process. And it feels like the tone of the site is changing, too, which is hopefully boosting traffic. I don’t have access to stats, but that’s how it seems. Best of all, my friend is very easy to work for, so the only stress involved is the stress I bring on myself. Once I learn to deal with that, I’ll be hunky-dory. Another couple of weeks, and I’ll be fine. (Assuming I don’t wipe out during the Satyricon ball. Then all bets are off.)

Anyway, here’s the point of all this: as I was walking home for lunch yesterday (yes, I go home for lunch, welcome to Mayberry), I noticed that fall has finally come to New Orleans. And only three months behind schedule–yay, global warming. The leaves on the crepe myrtles and the flowering pear trees have finally changed color and fallen into the gutter, along with the dirt and the glitter and shattered Mardi Gras beads.

And I realized that I’ve been so busy, I haven’t been paying attention to anything–or anyone for that matter. If you’re one of those “anyones” (or “anythings”), I apologize. Now that life’s looking up, I’ll try to do better.

So in honor of the fall that’s finally arrived–just in time for spring, which should begin next week sometime–here’s some appropriately fall-ish, introspective, gray-day music. I’m not sold on the low-rent Powerpuff Girls video, but I could listen to Shara Worden’s voice all day long.

Holy crap, this is awesome: over on BoingBoing, they’re having a debate about the merits and shortcomings of various king cakes. There aren’t that many comments yet, but what’s there is as spirited as anything you’d hear flying out of my neighbors’ mouths.

Can I just say? The people who inhabit the comments section at NOLA.com are clearly the dumbest people on the planet. I don’t always find their remarks offensive, but their stupidity is a slap in the face.

You have to hand it to the Alliance Defense Fund: they may be douchebags, but they are relentless douchebags.

Their latest legal endeavor (and waste of perfectly good taxpayer money) involves suing the City of New Orleans. In a nutshell, the ADF is mad about the city’s domestic partnership registry, which was instituted way back in the 1990s to facilitate the city’s efforts to provide health insurance to the partners of city employees. A couple of years ago, the ADF found six local dupes willing to stand up in court and whine that “the registry violates state laws against same-sex marriage and that local governments have no authority to govern such arrangements.” (Why did it take the ADF so long to file suit? Maybe the people of New Orleans are smarter and more tolerant than they thought.)

In 2005, the case was thrown out, with judges deciding that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue. The ADF appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which said, no, the six totally had standing, so the case went back to trial. The ADF recently asked for summary judgment in its favor; judge said “no”. The city asked for summary judgment in its favor; judge said “yes”. Oh yes she did. Over and done.

No word yet on whether the ADF will appeal again and send the case up to the Supremes, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Even though the registry is rarely used and little-known (Jonno and I have been together for nearly 12 years, and we’re not on it), it represents a chipping away at what the ADF likes to call “traditional marriage”. Between the Prop 8 backlash and the growing number of states moving toward marriage equality and the new, diverse, very non-traditional, very GLBT-friendly administration, the ADF is terrified of what the future holds. They’re pulling out all the stops in an effort to stop time.

After eight years of being on the defensive, bracing for failure, it’s nice to feel the tiniest bit optimistic (especially here, deep in the heart of a deeply red state). I won’t make it a habit, though.

You may have heard: there was an accident the other night.

Only, maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe it was intentional. Maybe the kid meant to pull the trigger. Maybe someone mouthed off and he wanted to teach that someone a lesson. Or maybe he wanted to show off to his friend, his accomplice: I can do this too, y’know.

But for personal reasons, I want to believe it was unintentional, an error, a fluke. I want to believe that he was just a confused teenager, some wannabe gangbanger, out for his first mugging. Maybe something startled him: maybe someone was walking a new puppy, and the puppy saw his own shadow for the first time, cast by the once-gas/now-neon streetlamp, and the puppy had never seen his shadow before, and it scared him, and he barked innocently and earnestly and that bark startled the kid with the gun, and the kid didn’t mean to, he really didn’t, but he kindasorta pulled the trigger. But guns aren’t built for kindasorta, they’re fired or they’re not, and this one was fired. And the boy looked at his friend, whose eyes were wide with astonishment, and he looked at the woman, whose eyes were wide with astonishment, and the next thing he knew, he was home, and things were very, very different….

* * * * *

For the record: I didn’t know Wendy. I have plenty of friends who did, and chances are good that at some point, in some barroom, she and shared a cigarette or a beer or a story in that casual, boozy, wonderful late-night way that friendships fade in and out here. But no, I didn’t know her.

However, I am unfortunately familiar with the pain her friends are suffering: the suddenness, the need to be together, the fear of being apart, the need to memorialize. How they’ve got stories to tell about her–funny stories, sad stories–and they’re reminded about them by every other crack in the sidewalk. Oh, this one time she and I were sitting on this very stoop when her boyfriend came walking by. Oh, this one time, she and I were out too late, and we’d been at Molly’s, and Laura had served us one too many shots of tequila, and right here, on this curb…. Oh, oh, oh.

I’m also familiar with the block where the accident or non-accident occurred. I’ve traveled it a thousand times, sometimes with hounds in tow (or more often, being towed), sometimes tipsy, sometimes groggy and trying to remember where I parked, but almost always nonchalantly, never worried. In fact, the boyfriend and I had driven down that block just minutes before the accident or non-accident happened. Obviously, we will all think of it differently now….

* * * * *

Since I never knew her–never really knew her–all I can do is put myself in her position, or in the position of her friends: think, What if it had happened to me? Which is a very selfish thing to do, and completely irrelevant to Wendy or her family or her friends. But it’s how we empathize. At least, it’s how I do.

And I when I put myself in her position, I wonder: what would have happened if it were Jonno and I walking down that block, on the way to a party or to pick up a friend? Would I have kept my head down? Would I have kept quiet? What would I have done if the kid had started asking questions?

Do y’all live around here?

No, no, we’re just going to get something to eat.

Is this all y’all have?

Yes, but my bank card is right there. There’s money in the account. I won’t cancel it. You can use it.

Y’all are faggots? (Said in that curiously New Orleans way, derived from the French, which knows the answer before the question’s been asked.)

We’re just walking down the street, man. Just walking down the street.

It’s the same sort of thinking, the same sort of daydreaming that survivors of tragedies often do: What would I have done differently? What would I have done to save the ones I love? How would I tell them goodbye? In New Orleans, sometimes it’s hard not to have some survivor’s guilt, even when you have nothing to feel guilty about.

(NB, and I’m not just being Catholic here, because I’m not Catholic: Is there ever a time when we have nothing to feel guilty about?)

* * * * *

On the upside–and it’s not much of an upside–the mugger and the murderer have been caught. Well, actually they turned themselves in. Given our city’s overworked police force, that’s probably the only way they would’ve found their way to a jail cell.

So there may be some closure to this story–more than many families here and elsewhere ever get, but also more closure than Wendy’s family and friends had ever imagined or wanted.

Well, this is a change:

One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it. [Whitehouse.gov]

In case you were wondering: No, FEMA hasn’t lost its knack for incompetence. And no, they still haven’t figured out this whole “public relations” thing:

Nearly five months after Hurricane Gustav, the public relations battle between Gov. Bobby Jindal and FEMA continues over who was to blame for the exasperating depletion of emergency food and water supplies soon after the storm….

FEMA’s argument, contained in a retort to comments made by Jindal last week, is that basically the responsibility for the problem lies with the storm victims of Louisiana, who gobbled up food and water at an “extraordinary” rate after Gustav swept through….

[NOLA.com]

Yes, you read that correctly: FEMA has blamed its less-than stellar response to Gustav on the people of Louisiana, who are gluttonous hoarders. To which I’d reply: Well, DUH. I mean, DIDN’T YOU ASSHATS KNOW THAT BEFOREHAND?

Sheesh, it’s like they’d never even visited.

And be sure to read the rest of that piece–especially the part where Jindal’s spokesperson, Melissa Sellers, uses the word “nutty” to describe FEMA’s claims. (So cute!) She insists that Louisianans would never hoard free MREs because they have such wonderful local cuisine. Of course, that’s kind of a non sequitur when you’re talking about post-hurricane recovery: as fabulous as our food may be, it’s hard to make a crawfish étouffée when your stove’s been blown out into the Gulf of Mexico.

1989 Presidential Inauguration, George H. W. Bush
Opening Ceremonies, Capitol, Swearing In

The Smithsonian just uploaded several copyright-free pics of George Bush pere‘s inauguration twenty years ago. I don’t recall watching it on TV, but turnout seems to have been pretty good. Still, I have a sneaking suspicion that Obama’s will be bigger.

I also hope it’ll be a little prettier in DC on Tuesday. Everything looks so bleak and gray in these shots. But then, it was the 80s, and it was Bush, so it kinda comes with the territory.

UPDATE: Actually, there’s a whole set of inauguration pics on the Smithsonian’s Flickr page. Included in the mix: gowns worn by Jackie Kennedy and Julia Dent Grant, which seems kinda random, but also fabulous.

Ironically, this was posted just yesterday:

Seven years of a perfect [air travel] track record is more than just a statistical anomaly; we have clearly taken what has always been a safe form of transportation and made it into a staggeringly safe mode of transportation. [BoingBoing]

Of course, Johnson was talking about fatal plane accidents, so technically, the streak is still…streaking. However, the timing makes for a weird coincidence.

For anyone following the whole “supplemental classroom materials” conflamma, Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education have come to some conclusions:

The state education board has adopted guidelines on what types of “supplemental materials” public school science teachers can use in their classes.

The move came in response to a new law passed last year that allows local teachers and school districts to use materials beyond the state-approved science textbooks in class.

The guidelines adopted by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education include language banning promotion of any religious doctrine and requiring that information presented by teachers be “scientifically sound and supported by empirical evidence.”

But the board didn’t include a specific ban on the teaching of creationism or intelligent design, as had been requested by some opponents of the new law. [NOLA.com]

Given our governor’s bible-(t)humping tendencies, I suppose it could’ve been worse. Still, it’s annoying to hear the Louisiana Family Forum folks complain about the policy’s “religious hostility”. I mean, the classroom is a place of intellectual engagement; it should be hostile to every staid, traditional mode of thinking–not only religion, but also accepted scientific theory. Ironically, that’s precisely why the conservatives behind the law lobbied for it in the first place.