Odd way to end the afternoon of the horrible morning.

That same day that my work was effed, I couldn't get much done because I was so sleepy - morning language work was okay, couldn't write with crap, my mind wandered when I was trying to study at home.

So, that afternoon, I biked early towards downtown - there was a 6:30pm concert I was going to - and stopped off at this beautiful park coffee shop in the old money part of town to study with my books for a couple hours.

I shared a table with this thin bearded (white) (tanned) guy with sunglasses and a pug named Vince, and he turned out to be a 69yo retired advertising executive who lived a long-time in the neighborhood and knew a ton of people walking by.

I didn't find that out at first, though; rather, he started telling me about how he had lost 7lbs over the past 4 days from a new diet he was on, where he was living on sushi and white wine.

Later, he was telling me about the ad business, and how he gets a lot of ideas when working out, and though it's just lists of 2-3 phrases composed of common words, it's a lot more difficult than you would think.

"Imported from Detroit," he was like. "Three words, but it says it all. That's tough."

Then, he looked out into space.

Then, "The other white meat," he was like. "It seems simple, but it's not. That made pork sales jump 80%... The guy who thought that up is a friend of mine, it made him millions. Suddenly everyone's thinking about pork. But, you're associating it with chicken, like it's healthy and good for you, and suddenly everyone wants to eat it."

Then, he looked out into space.

Then, "Unless, you're a Jew or a Muslim," he was like.

He also was telling me about how he's done some comedy-writing, and this guy who stopped by to greet him used to open up for Sinatra for 18 years, whenever he was in town.

He also told me about how he lived in a bad part of Detroit during the late 70s and early 80s, and pimps used to throw prostitutes off the tops of buildings when they were done with them.

Later, he got up to leave - after talking to me for an hour - we said bye, and I told him I'd probably see him again here, because I like coming to that park to have a coffee and study, especially when it's a nice day and I'm going downtown for something.

"Isn't it a great park?", he was like, as he got up and unevenly, unhurridly moseyed off, with his pug behind him. "It's our little piazza here," and he said the geminate z as if he was speaking Italian.

Horrible morning.

The other week I had stayed up till 1:30am to finish the Madalyn Murray O'Hair bio I was reading, then from like 6-9am there were sporadic jackhammers echoing up and down outside my window, and it was so hot I didn't want to close my window.

At like 7:45am, I had a ringing in my left ear like tintinnitus (tinnitus?), but somehow I managed to get to sleep for a bit, and later when I woke up around 9am for good, it was gone.

That day was effed in terms of work, though.

Odd eating habits.

So, I've been making popcorn on the stovetop for a while.

For a few weeks, I've been putting salt and a little sugar on it, to get a kettle corn taste.

The other day, I was sitting at my table studying and just pouring a little bit of sugar in my hand, and then a little salt on top of that, and then eating it straight.

It was really really good.

Disgusting food.

The other week I salted and drained the cucumber slices, but then when I threw them in a bowl in the fridge to soak overnight, I forgot to put vinegar in, so they didn't pickle. I put vinegar in the next day, but it was too late, they had re-absorbed the water, and over the course of the next few days became this cucumber mush that I had to force myself to eat without gagging.

2 biking sights.

1) After leaving a bar, I biked through the old money part of town to get to the lakefront path that would take me home. It was like 11pm, and as I go down past some old brownstones, I see a silhouette of a short woman with big poofy hair standing on the sidewalk and holding out a hose to water the plants around the tree. As I go by, she looks up, and she's very old and very white, with a ton of plastic surgery, and in a short pink party dress, with these giant beads around her neck. She has no expression on her face.

2) After a few miles, I see something like a big dog loping along the path in the opposite direction - and I look closer, and it's a big coyote. There were people a 1/4 mile on either side, just strolling in the night.

More about New Orleans.

My one friend with the cat said one of her biggest surprises about New Orleans was how all housing was found through word of mouth. People don't want to rent to people they don't know or who they don't meet through friends, so you just have to talk to random people to find out if they know someone who might have an apartment.

So, after talking to a guy at a coffee shop, she gave him his number and got a call from a friend of his landlord's.

She went to meet this woman, an older (white) woman who had lived in New Orleans for years.

"Darling," she was like, "People here drink. And when I say 'drink", I mean drink."

Then, she was telling her about how she had some new neighbors and had invited them over for a drink, and after a drink they started to take leave because they were going to a movie.

"Darlin," she was like, "I said to them, 'I may have invited you over a drink, but that doesn't mean you stay for just a drink."

During apartment-hunting later, my friend's iPhone died, so she went to some random guy pulling into a driveway in the (nice) neighborhood, and his daughter was home and she came in to use her iPhone charging cord. When asked if she wanted something to drink and my one friend with the cat said she was fine, the doctor was like, "But you haven't even heard what I've got!", and he opened the fridge and showed her iced tea, lemonade, etc., and then he opened the liquor cabinet for her.

Life at a New Orleans University.

My one friend with the cat got a one-year fill-in position at a New Orleans university.

When she got there to sign the contract and go apartment-hunting, the departmental secretary was like, "Welcome to Planet New Orleans."

She then told her about this emeritus psych prof who comes in talking about the classes he's teaching, what classes of his are coming up, etc., and she has to remind him that he's retired from teaching.

She also said that right before he retired, he was getting pretty senile, and started talking about cases from his private practices to his lecture classes. After one lecture where he went on an on about treating a guy who was having sex with a donkey, this student went to complain to the Dean.

"I don't want to hear about that in class, it's inappropriate!", she was like, and went on and on about how disturbing it was.

"And," she was like, "I think it's my uncle!"