b.rox

We got a letter from a lawyer in Metairie. It included a clipping of Stephanie Bruno’s story from Saturday’s paper, and the following handwritten note:

I have so enjoyed reading about your journey back home.
I was in exile for 11 months.
You are the backbone of New Orleans society. Mid-City does have a future. You see the [...]

Just wrapped up a four-night visit with the in-laws. (Actually they left town yesterday morning.) What to say? They read this blog, so of course I can’t be too honest. Heh heh.
No, really, I love my in-laws. I just like to make fun because they’re, you know, my in-laws. They’re fun people. Xy gets a [...]

Here’s an excerpt from the 1st District Crime Activity Report for July 20, 2008, reproduced verbatim and without editorial comment:

Type: Theft
Location: Dumaine and North Rocheblave
Gist: The victim stated that at 6:15pm, she received a response to an ad that she had in the newspaper for a puppy. The victim met an unknown black male in [...]

You’d think a guy like me would be all over Tales of the Cocktail. (Hell, I should be on a panel. After all, I’ve co-hosted almost a hundred episodes of a show about mixed drinks.) But every year it sneaks up on me, and I find myself obligated elsewhere. This year I’m hanging with the [...]

I was playing with the girl yesterday, and I asked her some silly question I don’t even remember now. Then I answered my own question, “Yes you are,” and gave her belly a little rub.
She laughed.
So I repeated myself, “Yes you are,” and rubbed her belly again.
And she laughed again.
“Yes you are.” Belly rub. Laugh. [...]

One of the young volunteers asked me a pertinent question yesterday: “So, when we get done painting your house, are you going to help other people with their houses?”
I confessed that I hadn’t thought about it. I’ve been so focused on our own renovation for almost three years now.
“That’s how some people I’ve talked to [...]

The astronomical solstice snuck up on me again.

Boss Lady’s out for the rest of the month, at an AP reading and then a conference. Olivia’s brother passed away, so she’s in Alabama. Janice is heading out to Las Vegas for a conference. Tomorrow morning I pack the wife and girl off to Indiana. Gonna be mighty lonely ’round here for the next [...]

As preparation for being a father, I backed off my involvement with a couple nonprofits. I resigned from the board of the Urban Conservancy and did not seek re-election as Communications Director for the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization. I still believe in these groups’ missions; I just felt I needed to make time for being a [...]

Thanks to the Magic Man for pointing out this story in the Bloomington paper about the closure of the local branch office of DialAmerica Marketing. I worked there for seven long years. Truly it is the end of an era. Like the guy in the story, DM allowed me to keep body and soul together [...]

My day started off with a bang. I’d just changed the inner tube on my bike because I ran over a screw the other day. First flat I’ve had in over a year, seems like. I pumped it back up, went to the sink to wash my hands and BANG. Really loud. Scared me. At [...]

I’ll be at the FOLC booth at the Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo this morning, from 10 ’til noon; stop by and say hi.

I think this is the best photo I’ve taken in a while. Somehow phallic and vaginal at the same time. Best viewed large.

All my friends and relations up in Indiana are talking about the earthquake last night.
None of them seem to remember the Quake of ‘89 as well as I do. Mom thought it was 87, JB thought it was 86, and Lee doesn’t recall a quake in his lifetime. But I remember it like it was [...]

Now about that low-grade sore throat thing I mentioned. It lasted five days at least, and I’ve still got a lingering dryness, but it never seemed to progress to anything worse… it never became a full-blown cold.
Even though I didn’t get any serious sinus congestion, somehow one of my ears got that “unpopped” feeling like [...]

One morning about a month ago, Xy couldn’t get our car started, and she had to catch a ride with a co-worker.
I was all set to take it to the shop, but when I tried it an hour later, it started right up for me. So we dismissed it as a fluke.
This morning we had [...]

Two and a half years after I took it, my picture of tiny orange fungi has finally been identified.

It is Dacryopinax spathularia, also known as sweet osmanthus ear in Chinese. It’s a jelly fungus.
This stuff still sprouts up on our deck from time to time. Apparently it’s edible, but I don’t think I’ll be sampling [...]

I finally added a brief biography to this site.

I went to the local wine shop Friday evening.
The woman behind me in the checkout line offered to sleep with me if I paid for her wine.
When I mentioned that I was married, she said she’d include my wife: “You know, like a threesome.”
But when she learned Xy’s not blond, she retracted the offer.

I was just a-sittin’ and a-thinkin’ the other night, and somehow I had a minor epiphany which I might express thusly:
Indiscriminate cynicism serves the powerful almost as much as unquestioning obedience.
It may be obvious to the rest of the world, but I wish this had occurred to me a decade or two ago. I have [...]