b.rox

New Orleans remains within Gustav’s cone of anxiety. The prognosticators seem to think he’ll make landfall late Monday somewhat west of here, but hurricanes have a way of turning unexpectedly for good or ill. This one’s gonna be too close for comfort. When Ivan threatened back in 2004, only the foolish and the poor remained. [...]

What I’ve been listening to the most over the last week: Echo & the Bunnymen Alpha Blondy Lustmord Death in June Wappenbund Hexentanz Tzolk’in Benga Dead Can Dance Sol Invictus Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Four-way tie for last.) Speaking of “heavy rotation,” Gustav’s a hurricane again, grinding his way to Cuba. Landfall is [...]

Perhaps the reason I think our daughter has been so easy to deal with so far might be because I haven’t had to deal with her all that much, really. I mean, I went back to work three months ago, leaving the work of child-rearing mainly on Xy’s shoulders. Then, when Xy went back to [...]

Gustav’s timing is especially crazy-making for us here on the Gulf Coast. Just about everyone around here can remember exactly what they were doing three years ago today. We were on the road, headed north, our first and only evacuation so far. Yes, it’s been three years, and we’re still trying to cut through the [...]

Gustav is set to enter the Gulf this weekend. He’s only a tropical storm right now, but he should be a hurricane by then. I only became aware of Gustav yesterday, when Karen asked, “When do we start freaking out?” My reply: “Thursday morning.” It’s only Wednesday now, so I’m not worried yet. But I [...]

One day when I was very young I brought home from Sunday School a page from some sort of activity booklet. I believe it depicted Jesus being tempted by Satan. I cut out the image of Satan and pinned it to the wall of my bedroom. I found a blue foil star somewhere and pinned [...]

Police sirens drew me out of my house Saturday around midnight, and I was surprised to see a hundred young people in the street. I live behind Warren Easton High School. Their dress made it clear the school was having a dance. The police were commanding the crowd to disperse. This morning I talked about [...]

Fay was a killer storm. Yet now she’s disintegrating over land somewhere to the north and east of here, and we’re being gently lashed by cool breezes and mild drizzling rain. It doesn’t feel like August in New Orleans, not by a long shot. This is a dark time of the year here. August used [...]

I wanted to ask a question of the Education Panel at Rising Tide III, but time ran out and the question went unasked. So I thought I’d pose it here. We hear a lot of talk about a great experiment going on in our fractured New Orleans school systems. We’ve got all these charter schools, [...]

OK. This really is it — the final, final, final, final story on our rebuild. I know I’ve said that before, but this really is it. I mean it now.

What I’ve been listening to the most over the last week: Zoviet France Death in June Ulver Tzolk’in David & Steve Gordon Sol Invictus Robert Rich & B. Lustmord Dernière Volonté Lustmord Dead Can Dance Oops. Gotta run or I’ll be late for Rising Tide III.

Generated by Wordle from a poem by Krystal G., a sixth-grade girl in downtown Indianapolis. Here’s a couple other Wordles I made:

Dear Persephone, You’re six months old today. That’s half a year. As for me, I just calculated that I am now 500 months old. That’s half a lifetime. It’s a well-known fact that time flows more quickly as you get older. These six months have probably seemed like an eternity to you, but I could [...]

I was going to say “be there or be square,” but since this thing is organized by bloggers the opposite probably applies. (You know, because blogging is inherently geeky.) I plan to be there, at least part of the day, as parental responsibilities allow.

Last month I was experiencing some weird gastric discomfort, like a dull ache in my stomach which kept coming and going for several weeks. It was bad enough to disrupt my routine, to keep me from doing things I’d normally do. At my mother-in-law’s suggestion, I visited the doctor. He gave me an EKG as [...]

Here’s another AmEx Members Project worthy of consideration; yes, you can nominate more than one.

The biggest single thing my department does every year is New Faculty Orientation, which is today. This year we’ve got the biggest crop of new faculty ever, bigger even than last year. Xy says we’re very smart to have this event. Despite all the professional development days, her school offers no special support for new [...]

So I went to that meeting last Monday night, the scoping meeting where the Veteran’s Administration sought public input on the possibility of locating their regional medical center at the old Lindy Boggs site. I won’t rehash the background details, since I already wrote about that last week. Instead I just wanted to record a [...]

Busier than usual; things always get kinda crazy here just before classes begin.

Unless I have a clear plan and a grim determination, I won’t get any work done on the house.