105

August 28, 2008 :: South

We came back talking about moving there. The candy-colored shuttered windows had gotten me. The music-friendly vibe, the fantastically cool ordinary folks, him. The fact that New Orleans is a city, but a small one; a scene, but a wildly eclectic one; a place that's surface-level debaucherous but somehow very sweet, impressed us both. Everybody falls in love with New Orleans, right? It's a dangerous new boy, that one that you coveted in 5th period math class, all brooding and damaged and probably really, really bad for you. It's that crazy week in a west-coast city on the corporate dime, $700 dinner on the Amex, four shots of tequila, giggling through the airport strip search knowing that you'll never breathe a word about the fun once you're back home. Everybody loves the Mardi Gras city, right--the masks and the pirates and the voodoo? We're just that ordinary, I guess. But we're also the kind of people who would absolutely pack up the dogs, drive down one weekend and just plain stay, because I think what I loved so much more than all that above, was the overwhelming everyday-ness I could see everywhere. I could see us chatting up favorite shop-owners on our way home from work. I could see us in the Pravda bar on Tuesday nights, playing chess. I could see us unlocking the big, shuttered door on an ancient, tiny apartment.

It's was the brightest vision I'd had in a long time.