Overdue

Here we go...

School is over. It has been over for several weeks now. I've been doing things like being human. And I love it.

Four months of teaching felt like six and I find myself continually referring to it as a six month period of time...which it wasn't. But!! I will be back in the fall, teaching second grade. I am excited. I really am. I will be glad to have a group that is MINE and we will be together the WHOLE year. I don't even know what more to say about that except that I am excited for all the possibilities.

Summer in New Orleans has been lovely. I'm working hard to fulfill my goal to fall in love with this city. What helps is that I found a book called Letters from New Orleans by a journalist named Rob Walker. It's a collection of, well, letters that he wrote around 2000. There was one particular little section that really stood out to me that I shall share now:

Q: Why did you choose New Orleans?

A: New Orleans is not the new Avenue C. This was once the richest city in the South. It is not that anymore, but it is also not the new anything; it is still New Orleans . What does that mean? I think random bullets are a clue. I think that unselfconciousness is a clue. Denial is a clue. Laughing at trouble seems like a clue, and so does dancing at Rock n' Bowl. Of course, I'll look back on all this in a year or two, or more, and be amazed at how badly I read the clues, at how little I understood, early on, about the mysteries of this place. It will all seem clearer then, I hope. Because that's why we chose New Orleans.

January 3-7, 2000

What stands out the most is the part about this city having a certain sort of unselfconsciousness. This is huge to me. In my eyes, Austin is a very "look at me" sorta city. Whether you're a hippie or a dragrat or a hipster or sorostitute you're making a statement. You make a point to show people what you're about by the way you look, where you drink your coffee, where you drink your beer, what you're reading. I don't feel that way here. I feel like I could walk down the street and be pantsless, jamming with headphones and a forty (well, MAYBE I couldn't have a glass bottle) and people wouldn't look twice at me. They really wouldn't give two shits. If that happened in Austin, I'd probably get twenty missed connections on craigslist about that weird girl who was walking down the street today. I MEAN, DID Y'ALL SEE THAT?!?! I don't know. Maybe it's my own insecurities shining through here, but I do know that it has been a major process for me to learn to be less...self-conscious. But I'm learning slowly that NO ONE really cares. Not in a bad sort of a way, but in a, "Hey Annie, quit being so paranoid and thinking everyone is looking at you." And I don't think that I could be learning a better lesson.

I look forward to reading more of this book. I highly recommend it.

I have nothing more to share right now. I need to do some serious house cleaning. We spent the day in the baby pool yesterday and tracked all kinds of backyard debris into the kitchen. Our water is supposed to be shut off tomorrow for some street construction. I don't trust them that it will be back on by five o'clock, so I'm feel very paranoid and trying to complete any household tasks that might require water before 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. Or maybe I'll just continue to watch bad stand-up on TBS...

Anyway, I have to get to reading a book called Seedfolks for a class I'm taking about teaching the humanities through literacy. Google PRIME TIME. It will all make sense then.

Alright, fellas, keep it real...keep in touch.