new orleans is sinkin' man, and I don't wanna swim

The Tragically Hip weren't kidding -- New Orleans is one of those cities that bustles on the edge of catastrophe. Like Tokyo nestled under Mt. Fuji or Los Angeles sitting smugly on the San Andreas fault, the Mardi Gras capitol is just one force majeure away from tragedy.

Basically the centreville is a water-catcher. New Orleans is in a bowl-shaped swamp about six to ten feet below sea level, and a series of levees is the only thing keeping out surrounding Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi and the entire Gulf of Mexico. So the old French Quarter never imagined its worst nightmare could manifest in Katrina; a slow moving category 5 hurricane approaching from the east is poised to kick up an up-to thirty foot storm surge that will top the levees and flood the city. That's a huge volume of water - over two stories. Every drop will have to be sucked out, but not by the emergency pump system the city relies on. It'll be underwater and useless after a surge like this. I'm imagining alligators, snakes and bayou riff raff swimming and slithering through little waves licking the second-story windows of strip-clubs and jazz joints on Bourbon, and archaic caskets from forgotten sub-sea cemeteries floating past the House of Blues and mixing with floating beaded necklaces and powdery beignet mix on their way down the Mississippi.

Who names a hurricane Katrina without having the inkling she'd be one hell of a cold bitch?

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's order of evacuation is unprecedented but necessary. The city is about to go under, and more than the three Katrina already killed in Florida could die. Louisiana and its citizens are facing a major natural disaster with a potentially fucking horrible and possibly deadly outcome. It's nice though, that Nagin knows where his priorities are and what the American public should really be focusing on here:

"The real issue - that I don't think the nation is paying attention to - is that through the city of New Orleans, through the Gulf of Mexico, we probably deal with almost a third of the nation's domestic oil that is produced. And that will most likely be shut down," Mr. Nagin said. "So, this can have a significant impact on oil prices going forward," he added.

Hear that Katrina? Better fill 'er up.


Gassing up in the big easy -- photo found at CNN.com

I get that tingly feeling

I had the best date today I'm almost certain I'll ever have and it went something like this -- feeling the warm weight of his big sleek boxer pup laying across my legs as I wake up this morning. Doing the walk-of-shame all day in some gold stilettos, a pair of joe boxers, a formal dress and an oversized green hoodie. Driving around the cloudy city until I blow my right front tire on a curb and taking goofy disposable cam pics of him breaking out the tire iron and changing it. Being treated to a large McDonald's fry and a raisin juice box bought from the big stop. And just in general, feeling like I'm in good honest company.

I'd like to be excused

This job chips away at a person. I think if any of us stay here much longer working the way we do, we'll simply fade to nothing.

What, that scratch? The kitchen door. And this is a skillet burn. Oh, I sliced that with a paring knife, and the bigger one's from a bottle opener. The gouge on my shin is a waiter-to-waiter collision. It is a cute scar, but it wasn't cute when I dropped the hot bowl of soup and it smashed against the top of my right foot. I don't know how I got the bruise, probably sometime after work when I was still here drinking.

We're damaged goods right now, but we do it to ourselves. A couple of the guys I work the patio with crashed a motorcycle driving drunk two nights ago.

I distinctly remember thinking, 'don't drive, you've had too many jaggers...' but saying nothing, because it wouldn't change a damn thing they were about to do. I pawed at the sleeve of the soon-to-be motorbike passenger though -- "let me drive you," I said. I think I was looking for something; validation maybe, or attention, or just sex, I don't know.

"Nah, I'm goin' fer a rip."

The rip being your spine jerking dangerously close to fucked and your skin burning along a grass median at 80 km/h.

The end result here is a few young guys who can't believe they stayed alive and scored a few days off to recuperate, and myself covering their broken asses by working my own off picking up their slack.

So everything I could possibly think about or write has to do with being overworked, overtired and undersexed. And maybe that last part doesn't even matter, because I'm almost too tired to be horny. The worst is, for once I've got cash, but I have no time and no one to spend it with. Exhausted -- exhausted is the only word I can feel every sense of.

Now the last thing I want is for anyone to have to listen to me bitching and moaning all the time, so writing here and there may just be on hiatus until I straighten out my relationship with this city and the Maritimes in general. What I'm trying to say is don't expect any casual/observant/amusing wit to be on the fucking roll around here until September, and don't bother wondering why I'm not e-mailing you either.

Dear Halifax,
I'll see you soon, love. It's never goodbye.

Dear Toronto,
You look awful good all haloed in bittersweet brightness, but don't fuck with me. I've met you before and we don't necessarily get along. I coming back though, so it's time to put up or shut up.

Dear Moncton,
I fucking hate you right now. You're gonna find what's left of us in a cloud of dust on the tarmac.

xo
Riley

bring home the bacon

This will sound ridiculous and subservient, especially if you know me personally, but sometimes I want a man around so I can clean up after him.

I want to flip omelets in the morning while he's still sleeping, fold his boxer-briefs, wipe down his counters and tidy the mess trailing behind him. Hell, I'd even bake cookies. It's like Barbara Streisand being unable to let Robert Redford walk out the door without putting on coffee and pressing his uniform in The Way We Were.

It's generous and selfish - lavishing and leaving small traces of yourself on the mundanity in his day-to-day. It's giving and garnering.

Plus, I just love making omelets.

you know the e-mail you write but never send?

Mine would go something like this:

Hi. Where are you right now/what are you doing/who are you thinking about? Were you wondering whether I was thinking about you? Because I thought you should know, I am and I do. When I'm about to turn downtown street corners, I imagine you walking toward me just there on the invisible other side - that we're about to meet in the middle. And since you never really are, I picture how that meeting might look if hopeful imaginings actually came true. I see you everywhere, but it's only second best.

The point is, I'm coming back again because I want to miss everything there is to miss a little more when I'm gone. The harbour city's only a few hours away and it owns a piece of me. Right now I'm searching for the part I left with you.

best. headline. ever.

"SHIPWRECKED SCIENTISTS RESCUED FROM HUNGRY POLAR BEARS"

"They managed to start a fire, to keep warm and keep the polar bears away," he said, explaining that the men used the spark plugs from their capsized craft's outboard motor to get the fire going. The island has some dried grass and scrubby plants.

"It was a bit like MacGyver."

at the feed trough

If you see me sometime soon, and you haven't seen me in a while, remember that my arms are starting to look like pipes because I carry all those big clay plates covered in the half-eaten food you leave behind. I balance them on my nose and shoulders. I toss them up in the air and do six backflips before they land neatly in my hands.

Also remember that I don't actually like being acrobatic with your mess. If you had to clean up after yourself, it would disgust you. It's a regular Orwellian animal farm around here. Grunt grunt grunt. I could show you, but still you'd never clue in to what a massive pig you actually are.

filling the empty bits

It's after midnight. Coffee. Sure.

"So.. do you want some booze in that coffee?"

As a rule this doesn't work, but it's last call and for this or some reason I find the rule's exception. So I'm pouring shots and making coffee.

Some caffeine-fueled brainiac made this really easy for me. All I have to do is make sure the 'ready' light is green and then push this little lever button that says 'start.' That's basically it. Hot steaming liquid coffee comes pouring out into the steel carafe. Is it called a carafe? I thought it was called a bus. A coffee bus. Sounds too good to be true if you're into coffee, just sounds right if you're not.

I'm staring hard at the little hot spout, watching the steady jet traveling seamlessly through the space between the coffee maker and the bus, receptacle, whatever. I'm staring and losing myself in the watching of it. At first I'm just wondering when it's going to slow down. How much liquid is coming out at once versus how much volume the coffee server holds equals how much longer I'll be standing here. But then I'm hypnotized and my thoughts are simply wandering.

The band is tripping through the familiar opening chords of a Dave Matthews Band tune. It's something off an early album. My brain flickers from coffee for barely a second, acknowledging the rareness of this band's playing of this tune -- they've been knee deep in The Who, Neil Young and The Beatles all night. They've been touring 1969 with a vengeance.

"I love this song," a profession crooned by the new girl snaps me out it. The new girl - the blonde girl - I keep staring blankly ahead but my eyebrows narrow.

"I just love it," she repeats almost like she knows I haven't really registered what she's said.

Sure you do. Yak yak yak. How unoriginal of you. Of course you do.

She's filling a tall red plastic patio tumbler with water and tips it trying to clear the edge of the sink. The water sloughs across the counter and off, splashing tap water down across my shins.

"God, did that hit your leg? Jeeze, I'm sorry," says the blonde.

I'm not fazed. I'm still into the coffee. The pour is starting to vary in speed.

I don't answer her.

I think: "she's going to make some guy an awesome girlfriend. She's pretty-blonde and wears a lot of makeup, she's clumsy in that really fucking cute-pathetic way, she's common and apologetic -- fuck, I don't even know her but I bet she already has some unoriginal asswipe of a boyfriend with gel in his hair pandering to her. I bet she likes unicorns."

The coffee stream is getting wavy at the bottom, and I force myself to attempt admitting there's some reason other than her I'm so spiteful, but I can't.

Drips are climbing up the coffee spout until it's no longer. Someone is telling the band I'm a singer, and a voice behind me is asking, "do you know 'Proud Mary?'"' as I'm breaking away from my coffee brewing fixation.

"No... maybe we all know something else," I'm already walking away. Next they'll assume I can do Bobby McGee like the every-drunk-girls who belt it, painfully impaling themselves on smoky bar mic stands. I don't wanna wail.

In the washroom, "it's the passion, not the talent," and "don't try to stop it, don't try to make it better, don't do anything, just let it happen" are newly scrawled in fresh pen at eye level.

I lean back against the cold pipe, tilt my head up and reach to cover my face, stretching down my cheeks with the heels of my hands. I haven't sat down in ten hours.

I can hear the band somewhere faintly launching into 'Southern Cross.' My mouth opens instinctively chiming out the lyrics in muted harmonies an octave above the band's voices, lightly reflecting back off steel stall frames and floor tiles.

So we cheated and we lied and we tested
And we never failed to fail - it was the easiest thing to do
You will survive being bested
Somebody fine will come along
Make me forget about loving you

You is everything.

And isn't that an explanation as good as any?

Isn't it.

yoke's on me

Some children in a blue van huffed an egg at the patio while I was serving sangria. I heard the yelps first and then gasped when a cold smattering hit my thigh. The table next to me had gotten the worst of it. They were pissed and speechless. I was just speechless. It took the guy I was serving jumping across the fence onto his motorcycle and speeding off down the street after the egg-hit-and-runners to snap me out of it. I started laughing, then I was laughing so hard I had to pee. I think it was the eggy look on everyone's faces. Eggs: the ultimate insult!

My motorcycle knight ended up finding the vanload of vagrants and a police escort brought them back to apologize.

"Hello Miss Riley," boomed the dashing Officer Pat, "these are the group that hit you with the egg."

Mumbles followed from the peanut gallery -- the perfect image of teenage delinquency.

"It was you? We're soorryy *cough*."

I swallowed back a hoot and summoned some brooms. "You can sweep my patio," I smirked.

I didn't even really want to punish them, I just wanted to know where they were and what music they happened to be listening to when they decided egging a downtown patio was an excellent plan.

They went about it like the red-handed villains they are, most of them pretty inept with a broomstick.

"It's all right. That's good. Just sweep what you've got into the dust pan for me," I sighed. I wish I could throw food and get away with a meager sweeping. I wished I were leaving too.

"Remember, this is how I make my money. This or worse is how you'll all make money at one time or another. You can go."

Next time work on that aim a little cause you throw like a buncha fifteen-year-olds.


Image attributed to Ennor.

there she goes, my beautiful world

I turn my face up to the broad convex showerhead as I shut off the flow. My condensed reflection is distorted by honeycomb-patterned jet holes while I shift my weight from one foot to the other, the balls of my feet pressing against the smooth round grouted stones that serve as a shower floor.

I'm jealous of her for having this shower. I'm jealous of this shower for having her. When I get back to her I'm dripping and even more jealous of the cigarette she's just taken a long quiet drag off.

"Stop smoking," I say. I'm telegraphing the plea straight to her lungs. "Quit please. Stop."

She just blinks and laughs, "I like that. I like that you tell me to quit."

Getting out of her bed for a shower wasn't worth it. I tug on the sheet that's covering her. The mid-morning sun is starting to climb up past her knee onto her thigh and across the bed. She's a point of light. She's fucking sexy. The room is muffled with warmth and exposed skin is sticky sweet. Firetrucks rumble back and forth outside the window. I can feel my feet turn to liquid, and then I'm just a puddle holding her reflection on the hot hardwood.

I'm liquid now, but I used to be stone. I used to ignore her.

I cataloged everything and acknowledged nothing; thinking loudly about her and hoping no one could hear. I ignored her hoping it might make her less attractive, like kids playing hide-and-go-seek think closing their eyes can make them invisible. I made a living ghost of her and walked right through.

But then she'd look at me and those blue alloy eyes would sink grapple hooks into my shoulder blades, ripping out my bones and convictions, leaving me spineless and speechless. One word could have gutted me.

Now that I'm moving away I find her still-encompassing looks are softer. Ironic, tragic -- I can see I've hoarded too much time and now I have none to give her. We steal what I have left here, tumbling into one another, fumbling to use every second.

Today we'll go out for breakfast before I'm gone and be the negative image of one another. She'll wear black and I'll wear white. She'll have the bacon and I'll have the tuna. She'll eat the meatloaf and I'll chew some salad. But no one will know where she ends and I begin.

She says, "I'm gonna miss you," and punches me in the heart. I press my fingers against the sore as she walks away up the street. I told her I wouldn't write about her this time.

pray for a miracle

"HEeeey gUys! GUYS!"

We stop laughing long enough to acknowledge a friend who grabs the center of the room with a loud voice and lubed spirit, all the while tightening his grip on his kokanee.

"GUYS! I have to SAY something! I haaaaave to say.... I HAVE to say, that I'm really happy we're alllllll together. Everyone get your beers. EVERYONE. Cheers. Let's drink to this."

Let's drink to us, right now, about two hours before the sun rises and only just beginning.

Let's raise a glass; let's make this our religion: let us pray.

Dear Karma, dear Fate, dear World, dear Life: make us drunk and stupid, make us kinetic bodies in motion, make us sex-on-wheels, make us celebrate this mad life, let us be solid rock and haloed flesh.

I've had these interesting thoughts lately, and furiously scribbled them with inky pens-in-reach on glossy receipt feeds while I settle credit cards at the bar, but I'm not often in a position to really write anything. Working too many hours and drinking long into the morning after is like being on what feels like a life-long bender.

I like my candle burnt on both ends. I like this sleepless late nightlife. But it spit warm rain tonight, and there but for the grace of thunderclouds go I with the night off. And then I discover the weakness of too much alcohol and very little sleep -- I've taken a turn towards being a media-ignorant slob.

Non-drunk non-barstaff norms: "Holy shit, did you hear about the plane accident in Toronto?? What the FUCK!"

My sorry ass: "wha?"

Yeah. Um. No. Awww shit. I'm a drunk loser. I'm surprised I don't have a beer gut and a mullet (trust me, I'm not reaching here as this isn't the only thing I haven't heard about in, oh, a week or so -- and basically mullets and beer guts are the hallmarks of the closed-minded crew in this crap city).

So I've been trying to catch up tonight, reading the lot on CBC and visiting the much of the vast internet's satire-savvy crew (long drawn out wink and pursed lips towards the likes of spoonbender).

Does the fact that CBC and CTV are both calling the Air France incident a 'miracle' not sit well with anyone else but me?

I think the word 'miracle' is basically defined as an event that can't be explained any way other than to say, "God did it."

If I were a CTV or CBC producer, I guess then I could even stretch it to conclude that God doesn't hate the French like some Canadian conservative and American war-touting anti-French republicans might still have everyone believe.

It's a miracle!

OK, I'll give them the fact that they didn't really make use of the word except by way of the leads. Whatever works.

I also tuned in (painfully) as a dinosaur of a news anchor (who shall remain nameless) asked a survivor some really dumb questions like, "did passengers panic as they fled the plane, or were they calm?"

Dammit, what do you think?

If you thought you were going to die, would you stay calm?

I still prefer high-yeilding candid questions like "what happened?" and "what were you thinking?"

So, you heard about this before I did. What went through your mind? Am I, are we all, overreacting?