Holy freakin horsedance, y’all. Please.

Thanks again, Cute Overload.

Posted by jackson on 27 Apr 2007
Filed Under: Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

It was about four and a half years ago that A and I first hatched the plan to move to New Orleans. He emailed me one day at work with the idea. I responded with an enthusiasm that surprised us both, coming home that evening with countless internet print-outs detailing neighborhoods, rental prices and local arts organizations. It is entirely possible that we moved to New Orleans because I was bored that day at work.

During this entire decision-making process, we referred to our destination — in both our conversations and our hearts — exclusively as New Orleans It wasn’t until we were on the drive down (a preposterous road trip, for which we had skipped a Uhaul and instead purchased a 1982 Ford Econoline van) that it occurred to us that we, in point of fact, were moving to Louisiana. Which was an entirely different prospect. Louisiana? A holy shit kind of feeling lingered in the van for hours.

Of course, at that point, we’d gone too far, and so we forged on.

Four years later, the strange swamps and marshes of Louisiana’s landscape have come to look like home to me. But, we haven’t actually ventured outside of New Orleans too terribly much. We always mean to. There are about 8 million festivals a year in this state — plenty of good reasons to travel about — but we’ve remained more or less tied to the city.

This weekend we finally found our way to the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival. Ponchatoula is about an hour outside of New Orleans. Like a Deep South Stars Hollow, it is quirky and precious and completely united in its small town pride. This festival is something to behold. First of all, there are strawberry’s everywhere — strawberry daiquiris, deep-fried strawberries, strawberry shortcake, strawberry ice cream, strawberry hats and t-shirts and beer koozies, gigantic strawberry kiddy-rides. The festival is not contained on Main Street, but instead is just peppered around town. You can wander around, consider your strawberry options, admire all the wrap-around porches and wonder if you should give it all up for the small town life. Eventually, you will find yourself in the center of things, where the carnies have set up shop with games and rides, and where the local cover band is jamming through every rock song you hate but dance to anyway.

The mister and I wandered for hours and managed to achieve nearly all the great carnival clichés: he won me a Care Bear shooting plastic cups with a BB gun; we ate cotton candy; we staged a PG make out session on the Ferris wheel… All of that plus some homemade meat pies and boudin pretty much sealed the deal: Louisiana rocks. And Louisiana is home.

Posted by jackson on 16 Apr 2007
Filed Under: New Orleans | 3 Comments »

Let’s a do a little Jeff Foxworthy, shall we? I already know I’m kind of a redneck — the broken down Ford Festiva that lives in my yard can attest to that. (At least it’s not on cinder blocks!) But, I’ve also been wondering to myself lately how I rate as a grown up. How do I know if I’m basically just an 18 year old with crappy metabolism?

Here are some thoughts.

• You know you’re a crappy grown up if you’re thirty years old and you just got your first credit card.
• You know you’re a crappy grown up if, upon receiving said card and not the expected stamp of disapproval, you did the Snoopy dance for five solid minutes.  
• You know you’re a crappy grown up if it took you four years to get a Louisiana driver’s license.
• You know you’re a crappy grown up if you believe that now that you have a credit card and a valid driver’s license, you’ll be able to get a well-rated mortgage, too.

Well, at least I still my child-size well of unfounded hope!

Posted by jackson on 10 Apr 2007
Filed Under: uncategorized | No Comments »