To My Two or What to Do...

[Current Music: Pulse--Ani DiFranco]

[WARNING: LONG POST!]

Ok, I promised to mention New Orleans, and I have loyal readers to cater to... But I still don't feel right pluralizing reader, even if there are two of you wonderful people out there...

But first, something childish and irrelevant, yay:

So there's this girl that has some artistic talent. And she has one strong common (pop) cultural interest. And she might be nearly 23% as crazy as me (but probably not). However... She seems to have a 'full social platter,' if you know what I mean. And she sounds like she plans on 'dining' well in the future... Ok, maybe these metapohors are a stretch... And maybe this isn't the place to pick someone apart. I wish I could dwell on someone's negatives to push them from my head. But alas, I simply think she's an interesting person. It's ok, she'll ignore me, hopefully not like the last one I thought would ignore me, that still stings... Oh, and ...pick pick... she seems to make out with a lot of people...(note the emphasis on people...She's probably made out with more girls than I have.)

Ok, that was green (bowwing) for a reason, just felt like talkin' about something unimportant, sure beats doing homework.

Now, without further ado... Let's talk about the Bloc!

I've got the big room, my age finally earned me some leverage, that and everyone in my bloc is cool about everything, so no one there contested it. Although artsy-social-diner punched me a time or two about it. Then complained that I was a mean person.

My RoomMy big-enough-to-have a king-size-bedroom.
My lets-wrestle-on-the-wide-open-floor-room.
My lets-have-a-bottoms-only-party-room. (I apologize to any family reading this)
..
...
..
My it's-oftly-empty-in-here-alone-room...
My silence-can-echo-in-a-large-enough-space-room...
My I-have-a-huge-single-but-no-one-has-ever-seen-it...

Nah, I'm not picking it apart, just trying not to brag too much ;-)

Ok, I think that's it?

Oh, wait. Nawleans.

So, the trip down = long.
First shower = painfully cold.
Second shower = pleasantly hot.
Third shower = slightly chilly.
Fourth shower = painfully cold.
Fifth shower = painfully cold.

Now, you may ask;
"Why did you take so many painfully cold showers?"
And if you didn't, I'll answer anyway...
We were staying in an abandoned hotel. The hot water was iffy at best, and I think it was in limited supply. So I now appreciate warm showers...a lot more... My room smelled a little stale, and after a long day of house-gutting, I smelled rather stale myself. With a film of New Orleans mold, sweat, and dirt covering my body, a shower was required, freezing cold or not.

The food, probably far below par, but when you're American-starving(1), it tastes delicious. Amazingly a hotdog seemed more than edible. Even the second meal consisting of only a plain hotdog, when they ran out of condiments. Breakfast consisted of a small plastic bowl with cereal in it. I think that may be the first time in my life when I ate an official serving of cereal for breakfast, usually I eat my bowl full...

The first work-day, the nice old man who was watching us tear down his grand-daughter's house offered to buy us some Popeye's Chicken for lunch. Our team-leader passed, we're getting Styrofoam boxes with 5 oz of food, what would we want with chicken? Well, noon came and went...then one o'clock arrived, and the troops got the team leader to make a call...
"Sorry guys, we have to go pick it up..."
Grrr...(That wasn't me, that was my stomach)
Grrrr...(And that one was me)
So, we sent off two people in the car, to go back to the hotel, to get our Styrofoam boxes of food, but I was hungry, anything short of moldy drywall and insulation was sounding mouthwatering. One problem, they arrived too late, the food left as they got there.
So, we went from a delicious meal of chicken, to a box of light, yet edible fair, to nothing...
"My bad guys, I think they might have told me I was supposed to go pick it up..."
Grrrr...(This time it was me and my stomach, synchronized)
So...We all pitched in, and I had to pay two dollars for lunch. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, split a few dollar bags of chips, generic brand squeeze-its(the real ones aren't made anymore). And boy did it hit the spot, I even ate an apple. And some peanuts. And drank a lot of water. And my stomach shut up. But *I* still felt like growling. Team-leader didn't make a very good impression on me that day...

But at least gramps called me babe a few times, that made me feel special...

[Still listening to Pulse...]

(1) Yeah, bringin' back the footnotes! American-starving, me and my bro came up with it, as Americans, we rarely know what true starving is, so it's almost an insult to those who are to say we are. So we instead say "American-starving" out of some small sense of respect to those who are dying without food. It's bad enough that we whine after 12 hours without food...