New Orleans vacation (4 of 7): Even more informality.

On New Years Eve when me and my friend were waiting for the bus to go downtown to the French Quarter - we had been biking, but didn't want to risk the drunks - we were out by the bus bench near her house waiting for it to come, and it came a few minutes late, then pulled over in front of a Circle K halfway up the block, and the driver got out.

Like 5-10 minutes later, he got back on, and then he pulled up.

He waited till we paid, even though that forced him to miss the light.

He just wasn't in a hurry, though that was probably the biggest public transportation night of the year...  The bus ran just once an hour, and by the end of the route it was packed to the gills.

New Orleans vacation (3 of 7): More informality.

At this one dinner function I went to with my one friend with the cat, I met an art school student who was doing a documentary about the annual drag queen parade, which attracts up to like 8,000 people a year.

He said a big thing right now is that the city is finally asking them to get a permit.

In years past, they just announced where the parade was going to be a few weeks beforehand, let someone from the city know kind of where, and just did it, and that was always good enough.

New Orleans vacation (2 of 7): Animals.

At the coffee shop we went into in the hipster neighborhood to kill time at before going to dinner, we were just sitting around reading, when my one friend with the cat was like, "Look," and there in front of the open door of the coffee shop was a chicken, scratching.

Then, it came in and scratched around on the inside doormat a lot.

Later, after it had left, some neighborhood cat came in, too, and the 2 hipster baristas there were petting it as it was sitting on a chair...

At the restaurant that night, I got fried chicken, which was okay (though there was a lot of it), but the stewed okra with tomatoes was just astounding.

New Orleans vacation (1 of 7): Drunk texting.

So over break I visited my one friend with the cat who lives in New Orleans, and when we were in the hipster neighborhood trying to decide on a bar, I suggested one on a corner, and she said that that was where she had thrown up on a table on Halloween

Then, when I suggested another one, she said that's where she had ended up a month ago with a friend and had drunktexted a lot of people (including myself) saying -

So many hipsters so little time

- at which a friend of hers had texted back -

To hate or to fuck?

- to which she texted back -

To hatefuck.

. . .

Pleasant memory of a winter evening: A bar.

Before I left for the holidays, I was sticking around the neighborhood where school is to kill time and meet up with my Michigan hippie friend after she got off work at 10pm, and so I decided to go to a few bars, though I was a bit out of it since I had had a long day of work and then a very intense workout at the gym.

So, when I was at the bar in a Mexican restaurant that was mostly empty except for a few tables, I was flipping through some free newspapers, and then I began to look out the window, because it was beginning to snow in great big sheets almost going horizontal.

"Are you okay?", a(n older) (Mexican) waiter said, which made me start.

"Oh yeah!", I said, "Just killing time, I was looking at the snow."

"Okay," he was like, "You looked upset," and at that the (young) (Mexican-American) delivery guy nodded.

I then explained why I was tired and out of it etc., and we all started chit-chatting, and the entire time  I couldn't get over just how nice of them that was, to reach out like that to someone they thought was upset.

My new favorite outfit.

1) A union shirt in bright colors, with a gigantic picture of a fist.

2) My little pin that looks like a traffic sign, and says - WAKE UP.

I've worn it to school a few times, and always go up to friends and point at my pin and mouth like I'm shouting, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP!". 

I then tell them about the horrible things that admin are doing to fuck them over.

My dad gets it...

I was thinking back the other day to when my dad met my Croatian landlady (of my old apartment).

For the heck of it, he said hello in Hungarian, and she did a double-take, but seemed cool with it, and always asked about my dad.

I now realize that that seemed weird - what Croatians know Hungarian? - but in retrospect, I realize he was establishing his Eastern/Central European street cred, where people like to know if you're from or your family was from that region, it means something to them.