So much for trying to fit in here.
*Before we begin what is sure to be a very venomous post, I just want to say that my thoughts and lame attempts at prayer are with peasantlass, sparkfire20, corzyn, katchan, katnip21, weltall, musesick, michelia, ravencreature, and of course all us NOLA expats: Weston, Chris, Christy, Emily and Katie with our displaced loved ones and displaced sense of "home". (I was too lazy to do more code, sorry). If there's anything I can do, don't hesistate to call or email or text or send smoke signals or ANYTHING. I'm in serious debt with some recent bad additions to my credit that's keeping me from getting another school loan I need, but I'll be DAMNED if NYU OR my landlord get my money/resources if you guys need it more. My problems are bullshit, just bullshit in this grand scheme. I'm thinking of trying to get an extension for my rent just to make sure I can help out a little. At the least, let me know you're alive (haven't heard from Shercole, Brooke, Amelia, or Justin, Damian...hell, I'm even worried about Greg and his family so you KNOW I'm losing it)*

Onward.

I feel like I'm stuck in a 4 day long nightmare. I've slept about 12 hours since Saturday night. I've barely eaten, only a bite or 2 of something a day to take my vitamins. The body is supposedly like the world, 75 percent water. I feel like now my brain is emulating New Orleans, and is drowning. I've literally felt since all this shit went down like I'm moving underwater. It's an in-body, out-of-state experience.

And I don't even live there anymore! I can't BEGIN to imagine what my friends down there are going through. The uncertainty, the loss of everything, jobless, wondering about people who stayed behind, not even having a working phone. Not knowing if our city will ever...resurface. I remember a year ago being so worried about Ivan, because I couldn't imagine having so many memories tied up in a city that may no longer exist. But now, it's happening, and I feel so helpless stuck here 1200 miles away, going through a sort of existential angst.

And speaking of that...I'm ready to vomit at some of the attitudes I've seen up here, expressed in the smug faces of 8 million assholes who, for the most part, only know of a disaster when they can't get skim milk in their fucking lattes at Starbucks. People have surmised that perhaps this is "God's wrath," "Sodom and Gomorrah," or the just desserts of those "stupid people" who didn't evacuate.

To that, and to them I say: "You're fucking ignorant if you're going to judge an entire city by the 20% who stayed behind, mostly because they could not leave. You may not believe that outside your fair land of plenty are actual *gasp!* poor people, who can barely survive in the worst of times. It's a little more complicated than stepping out your Upper East Side brownstone and hailing a cab. IMAGINE HAVING TO NOW EVACUATE THE EVACUATION SHELTER. New Orleans is a broke-ass town, and it relies heavily on the fall to rescue the tourism industry which suffers in the summer, because of heat, crime, etc. You know the first part to flood, the Bywater? Say hello to New Orleans' projects, also known as the 9th ward. People who had so little to begin with now have NOTHING. How can you begin to compare that to 911??? How dare you ask me why I look so "somber." I didn't just lose possibly my REAL hometown, the place I wanted to return to someday and live out the rest of my days...I feel like I've lost even more than a friend or lover: I feel like I've lost a significant portion of myself, like having limbs amputated. My friends are now HOMELESS, assuming they're all even ALIVE. And sorry but not just those "lawless, lower-class black people" you're obviously so superior to in your fucking high-rises and designer shoes, but MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. You expect the whole goddamn world to celebrate anniversaries of an admittedly horrific disaster, yet can't see the gravity of a situation involving lives lost, jobs lost, ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES LOST. You think if anything happens somewhere besides fucking Wall Street it's not important." /rage

Sunday night I was on the phone with one of my closest friends, Michael. He stayed behind in Mid-City because, like many people, he didn't think the storm would hit until too late, and he has no car. We kept getting disconnected, it was getting very nerve-wracking because looters showed up, and I could hear them banging on windows and doors trying to get in. The phone cut off for the the last time about 1 a.m. I've called back hundreds of times, but no answer. Mid-City was where the first breach occurred. I heard on the NOLA community that he was seen sometime on Monday, but that was before the city began to sink. I'm numb.

I have no interest in anything anymore. I don't want to be here. I don't even know if I want to be in a world WITHOUT New Orleans. I know, it's a bit premature to make such apocalyptic remarks, and I'm really trying hard to be optimistic.

But I just don't care about anything anymore. I've probably lost my New Orleans, which I've always hazily envisioned as an anthropomorphized plump, sedate, temptress, cloaked in a rotting red velvet gown, who never says a word but smiles coyly at her many suitors. Why SHOULD she evacuate? She's lived satisfied, and she will die satisfied. But trying explaining that to a city, nation, and maybe a world of jerks who can't get off their high horse, high pulpit, high rise corporate position enough to see that the "little people", the bartenders and waiters and buggy drivers and psychics and underpaid teachers and chefs and artists and world-famous musicians scurrying for shelter on the roofs of their dilapidated shotgun houses might actually be more human than they could ever HOPE to be, yet with only their inate animal instinct to survive, intact.

New Orleans: Just take care of yourself and your citizens right now. We will defend you to the above-ground grave.