a bit of news and a bit of thanks

Well, the second semester shoe dropped today. I’ve been told that I will remain part time for the remainder of the year. Not a big surprise. In fact, more surprising that I would be offered even part time as the administration has opted to beef up the course load of full timers. Now all full timers will be expected to teach five classes, not four. With the projections for second semester enrollment, if each teacher continued to have four courses, there would be no need for part time, but I guess it’s a matter of economics.

I told my boss I needed the Thanksgiving break to mull it over. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been so frustrated by the fact that once-upon-a-time this was precisely what I wanted. The second semester position involves only teaching seniors—ideal! But somehow it’s just not okay any more. I haven’t planned and saved for this change in my career, and the opportunities in New Orleans for meaningful part-time work are practically non-existent. Long ago, I fancied myself a future freelancer, but I’m not sure I have the rocks to take that on.

Anyway, lots of thinking to be done. Looking forward to doing that thinking with my belly full of turkey.

This weekend, I was lucky enough to attend what I think was the American premier of a British Channel 4 documentary called “The Hurricane that Shamed America.” Jim, the SO of my local best friend, Erin, used to work for Frontline, and worked as the American producer for this documentary (the British equivalent of 60 Minutes). Jim and Erin hosted a viewing party for thirty-plus friends and associates, complete with copious amounts of wine and food. Amazing to have so many like-minded people in a room. Interviews with Brownie and clips of Bush were met with hisses (truly, honestly, I don’t recall ever hearing so many people actually hiss. I thought hisses were the purview of melodrama and the Three Stooges). Mass sighs and sniffles at the sight of suffering. And I can’t help but wonder if a sort of mass-consciousness has been created in New Orleans. Yes, friends of my friends are more likely to be liberal. But could anyone in New Orleans have watched this documentary and not felt the same communal sadness and disgust? (I think the answer to my question is yes. I still see people driving around with “W” bumper stickers. I have a student, who lost her family’s 100+ year old home in Mississippi, who still displays a “W” sticker on her laptop. I don’t get it. I liken it to a beaten wife who remains loyal to her abusive husband.)

It was a good film. Apparently, it was not the film that Jim thought he was making because the BBC came out with their version of the story earlier—much of the stuff about the levees and the meteorology of the hurricane ended up on the cutting room floor (including the interview Jim did with Max Mayfield of NOAA, which he flew to Miami for). But the title explains the gist of the documentary—it focused instead on the fact that the government abandoned so many New Orleanians; that food and water were slow-coming (understatement). That the rescue operations were hindered by politics.

It reminded me so much of being in Ireland in the summer of 2004, listening to the way that Europeans perceived the US and our government. I can’t count the number of times I was told in many different ways: “We hate your president, but we also recognize that he doesn’t represent the general population of America. But if you re-elect him, we’ll be forced to think otherwise.”

This week was my most lucrative under-employed weeks so far. I worked for Hal twice and made $82. I babysat for Ivy on Saturday and made $50. I sold another article to Associated Content for $10 (review of local coffee shops). Hardly making up for lost pay, but any dent is a welcome one.

I’ve continued my uncharacteristic social life. Tuesday night we had beers with Hal at the Rendezvous Tavern (where I am now; how totally lovely to have Guinness and internet at the same place). Thursday, we went to dinner the midnight showing of the latest Harry Potter with Erin, Jim, Scott, and Carolyn. (Excellent movie. Jason’s favorite, although I preferred #3). Friday was the premier at Erin’s house.

Tomorrow or tonight, we leave for Indiana for Thanksgiving. I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to escaping to the “real world” for a few days. I’m one of the few who have been in New Orleans for the past couple of months without respite. Most of my friends have made forays into the outside since they’ve returned. This place remains a very depressing city (see my recent Subcrawl post on the suicide rate). But I wish I had a few more days before leaving.

Ah, sigh, all that being said, I’ve got quite a bit to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Certainly my safety and the fact that we suffered so little in the wake of this tragedy. (I’d say “my health” but I have been unsuccessfully battling the same cold/intestinal thing for the past three weeks almost). The love and outpouring of support from my family and friends. Perhaps even the kick in the seat of the pants that this hurricane has launched my way. Perhaps. We’ll see about that one.

Enjoy your pumpkin pie and stuffing, dear ones. Eat til your bellies ache to burst and then kick back and watch a little football. And know that you’re all in the heartfelt thanks of this strange girl’s thanksgiving.

Private Melissa, meet public Melissa

Thanks to endless hours scouring Craigslist.com for work both here and elsewhere, I stumbled across a New York ad looking for writers for a culture blog. Unpaid, but I checked anyway. The first post I saw on the blog was about the passing of New Orleans restaurant owner Joe Casamento. Casamento’s is a tiny Old New Orleans hole-in-the-wall down the street from me on Magazine and Napoleon. I hadn’t known Joe died; apparently few people did. Just out of the “aw, shucks, Joe’s dead” factor, I decided to apply for the position. And I got it.

I don’t really know anything about these people or this blog. It fits in well with my love for pop culture, and the blog owner, Kim (who's based in LA. Odd that an LA-based blog was advertised in the NYC Craigslist and landed a Louisiana writer), was excited to have someone from New Orleans join the staff.

You know, there are people who make their living writing about their lives on weblogs? I find this extraordinary—unfathomable, actually. But, I suppose it’s a somewhat natural offshoot of the new reality-based entertainment culture. There’s a woman in Utah named Heather Armstrong who is supporting her family with her blog on motherhood Dooce. She’s hilarious—vulgar and a bit twisted.

Don’t worry, Ma, family, etc, I’m not looking to make this my next career move or anything. Yes, I know, I need health insurance, a retirement plan… and this current gig is unpaid. But I’m a little excited that people outside of my teeny sphere will be seeing some of my writing.

Anyway, the site, Subcrawl, is not family-friendly. There’s some slightly racy stuff on the site. My stuff will remain as it always has been, friendly for just about everyone except perhaps my grandmother. I’ll be focusing mostly on feet-on-the-ground stuff from New Orleans. Hope to highlight some of the stuff that’s not being widely reported in national news.

The private-meet-personal note is that this blog will be linked to Subcrawl, so it’s possible some strangers may be checking in. I won’t alter the content of this blog at all. It remains for family and friends to keep abreast of my life (and I haven’t the foggiest how many of you still check in). But if you want to see more newsy reporting from me, you don’t have to sift through the rest of Subcrawl; you can find a listing of all my postings here. I already have two postings. I’m going to go back over Displaced and make sure there’s nothing on the blog that gives out any family secrets—I don’t want to be David Sedaris or anything.

published

I keep forgetting to mention that I published an article online. It's not some huge feather in my cap or anything, but last week the article did appear on the website's "Top Content" list. And I did make (very) few bucks. You can read it at: Post-Katrina, Uptown New Orleans Returns.

dogs and kids

I don’t really know what has me so down lately. It could be the state of the city, the state of my life, or some combination thereof. Or it could be the looming prospect of leaving the city, and all the guilt and anger associated with that. But I have been just blue-to-the-point of black lately. Today it was somewhat better; yesterday was a big black hole. (“Yippee,” you’re thinking, “so glad I decided to read Melissa’s blog!” Yeah, well here’s a big warning, if you’re looking for Happy Me scan down until you find something about “Ivy” or “dogs.” Actually, some of the dog stuff is really sad too.)

Earlier, I talked to J and he said he’d be home tomorrow. But I just got off the phone, and due to flight complications, he’s decided to head to Galveston where the usual writing gang (Lorin, Brenda, John) is staying for the week. He’ll be home on Sunday instead. I’m trying to make it okay by saying that it spares me some serious housecleaning tonight. (I live like a bachelor when J’s not around). Instead of washing the sheets, I cracked open a beer. It actually is okay, to a certain degree; I emailed him yesterday and said that while I hoped he’d be home on Thursday, I’m not exactly a big honking joy to be around. And I get a lot of guilt-free work done when he’s away. But he’s been home for around 16 hours since October 24, and I swear those were the most peaceful 16 hours I’ve had in a while. As I said, WAY early on, maybe even in my first entry, J and I lead very independent lifestyles, and normally that’s just hunky dory with me. I like my “me” time, and I like living alone on occasion. And hey, we had more than enough “together time” the two months we were evacuated. But still…

So, how have I been filling my time? A whole lot of job searching, applying for freelance work, sending out hope-filled cover letters. So far, no bites. Went to a birthday party on Saturday, followed by a lovely hang-out-and-watch-Arrested-Development-on-DVD session at the home of some friends.

I have found some worthwhile volunteer work. Long story short, one of the students from Jason’s workshop is independently trying to hook up Katrina-rescued pets with their owners. She’s searching Petfinders and trying to track down owners, and she contacted J to see if he could help her from the New Orleans end. Of course, he’s out of town, so he passed my email on to her. She’s been sending me addresses, and I’ve been posting fliers on people’s houses. (Hi—we’ve found your pet… contact us at…) This work has taken me to some of the areas of town that were most devastated by Katrina.

Here’s an excerpt from the email I sent to Jeanne after my first foray:

One small step, I guess...

Here's what I found:

S. Scott street was a lovely little street. Gorgeous Victorian little homes in a not-bad neighborhood. The homes seemed (pre-K) well maintained. G's house got at least four feet of water inside. And the house itself was raised at least four feet off the ground, so we're looking at an 8-9 foot flood zone. Her door had several notices from her landlord, basically asking her to pay the rent or vacate. From what I could tell, she hadn't been back. But it's a double shotgun, and it looked like her neighbor had been back or was back (there were cleaning supplies on the porch). There was no one on the block to ask about her. The street itself was full of debris and I had to park a block away.

It took me close to an hour to get from there to the Independence St address because the streets were so bad. I don't know that neighborhood well-- it's the now infamous Ninth Ward. It was pretty much blind luck and a relatively good internal compass that got me there.

Ha, that I'm a writer. I certainly can't do justice to what I found on the way and when I got there. You'd have to know these types of neighborhoods in New Orleans to really understand-- they're just jam-pack-full of houses. No yards to speak of. Just tiny houses smashed into blocks with skinny streets. House after house of ruin. I did take a picture. I'll upload it tomorrow and send it to you. I knew I wouldn't begin to be able to explain.

It's a good bet that the Ts owned their house. There's a lot of homeowners in the area. It wasn't much of a place to begin with, to be honest. A square little white thing surrounded by a chicken wire fence. In front was a pen almost the size of the whole front yard. Likely the pet that was rescued was a guard dog. While it's impossible to tell what the neighborhood was like pre-Katrina, the presence of the large pen for a large dog right out front makes me think it wasn't very safe. The front door had been kicked out and there were at least two blown out windows. When I nailed the sign to the doorframe, I called inside and peeked. Furniture everywhere. There's a possibility that they'd been back and taken stuff though because the front room seemed strangely devoid of knick-nack type things. Either that or it was looters. Or the floods washed everything small into another room of the house.

What gets me is that the place had at least 9 feet of water. How did the dog survive in that pen? The 9th ward was under water for days. I just can't figure it out. I talked to a contractor who was working one block down from the Thornton's place. He said he didn't know anyone in the neighborhood, but the guy he was working for was coming back in an hour or so and the contractor said he'd have that guy check out my flier and contact you or PAWS if he knew where the Ts were.

The contractor in the 9th ward said, "This is a really nice thing that you're doing." And I said, "Well, I'm just the runner, this woman in Cincinnati is tracking down all the information." And he said, "You tell her she's doing a nice thing, too."

There you have it; whether or not these people find their dogs, a stranger in New Orleans sends his thanks. And so do I.

As a postscript, I found out today that G on S. Scott Street did hook up with two of her dogs… she had two more, and we’re looking for them now. Jeanne asked me to swing by the house again today, if I could, to report back on the condition of the home so she could share it with G. This was my email back to Jeanne today:

I just got back from G's house. She was there, and so was her mom (also G). Unfortunately I didn't get to meet Mom because she was at a neighbor's.

G was very nice and super appreciative (she approached me very cautiously thinking I was from her landlord's). She and her family stayed three days after the flood largely because Mom wouldn't leave the animals behind. They moved up to the second floor with the animals, and on the third day, when the water level hadn't gone down any, a neighbor (the "neighborhood hero," she called him-- who's named, interestingly, Tom Cruise-- I saw his business card, so it's not a misunderstanding) came by with a boat, got the family out, and went back for the animals which he moved to another house's second floor balcony with other neighborhood pets.

The family is now at a much smaller apartment in Kenner, and they've signed a 6-month lease. They're pretty miserable because they aren't allowed to have pets and the place "just doesn't feel like a home." The good news is that one of Mom's best friends owns a kennel nearby, and they think they will be able to house the pets there until their lease runs out. Mom really wants the dogs close by so she can visit them often.

I don't have much more to add to the descriptions except that Mom is really, really desperate for Lucho. (sp?). He's male, very stocky, around 14 lbs when Katrina struck. His hair gets curly (as does Munyaka's (sp?)) when he's not groomed. He's around 13 years old and his front legs are bowlegged. Munyaka is smaller-- 10lbs. She's the one with the hernia on her "bottom" (I'm not sure if that means bum or underside). The calico cat is a baby; she'd be eight months now, and un-fixed (the appointment for spaying was in September). She's a dark calico and according to G, very obedient. The older cat is very old and white and angora?

I didn't see this in the description you sent, but the dogs are all family. Munyaka is Lucho's mom and the found pets, Oso and Sweetie, are Lucho's kids (and therefore Munyaka's grandkids).

There’s more, but those were the interesting parts. It was wonderful to meet G today (I’m trying to not put too much identifying info on the web, so I’m abbreviating names). She was very sweet, very sad, but also very grateful and lovely.

The other nice reunion story that I have was the one that got me involved in the first place. (Note that so far no one’s been reunited directly from my work, but it’s nice to be a part of this successful team). The first contact I got was for a local French bakery owner—I was supposed to go down there on Friday after school to tell him we knew where his dog was, but Jeanne called him before I had a chance to go. When she talked to him, she found out that he doesn’t speak much English. And all this time the people who have been fostering the dog thought that the dog was stupid because he’d stare at them blankly whenever they gave a command—it turned out that he just didn’t “speak” English.

For some reason, the pictures I took of the 9th Ward didn’t come out. I’m okay with that. I wonder about the karma of catching other people’s misery on film, anyway.

On Tuesday night I babysat. I honestly can’t remember the last time I took care of a small child. Way back when we first arrived in town, I responded to an ad looking for a part time nanny. My hours didn’t mesh with the mom’s, but it turned out that she and I had friends in common, so she asked if I could babysit on occasion. Ivy is a terrific little girl—I think 17 months old. She babbles incessantly, but I understand only 1/10th of what she says. Wee ones are a ton of work. I forget that every time my biological clock goes berserk. (Speaking of which, we read a really cool book called Hippos Go Berserk together… little guys, these days, have some pretty fantastic reading material to choose from). And, whoo!, diapers. Wow. Ivy pumped out some seriously scary stuff. (Hey, this is all relatively new to me, or new again seeing that I haven’t babysat since high school). I’ll be sitting for Ivy again on Saturday. Her parents are wonderful.

So, that’s the update. I guess it’s not as gloomy as I thought it would be. My mood is far worse than my writing. I suppose my mood would be worse if I had to clean the house tonight (note to self: don’t save it all for Saturday night).

giggles

It's been a long, long weekend. Not that that's a bad thing. I'm sure tomorrow morning when I wake up bright and early to go to school, I'll be wiped out and cranky that it's only Monday again. It's been a pretty full weekend, to be honest. Mostly full of working on cover letters and that sort of thing. Been trying to brainstorm some creative ways to make money during these slow times. So far I'm batting zero, for the most part. Sold a couple of things on e-Bay, but when you consider the time spent listing stuff and then the time spent packing stuff up and shipping it out-- it's pretty much minimum wage. As a giggle, I noticed that the few entrepreneurs around here who are making any money are doing it by printing up super-cute t-shirts, so I created a design of my own and posted it on Cafe Press. It looks like this:
I ordered a t-shirt and a bumpersticker for myself. Yes, I recognize that I pretty much spent what I earned on e-Bay. I'd have to sell a couple hundred of them to even make a week's worth of part-time pay, but heck, working on it made me happy for a couple of hours.

The whole waitressing thing didn't work out, but in hindsight it's probably better that it didn't. In just a couple weeks, I'd need four or five days off to go to Indiana for Thanksgiving. That probably wouldn't fly with a restaurant. Hal seems to have disappeared. I haven't worked for him for a week. I'm a bit in denial mode about my upcoming half-paycheck. I've spent a lot of time researching jobs and putting together resume stuff. Those have been some really miserable hours. There's nothing like seeing a job, knowing you're perfect for the job, and then putting together a cover letter and resume package that you know is just going to be one of hundreds received. I keep having to check myself-- I find myself practically groveling in my cover letters: "Please, please, please look carefully at this. I'm an excellent person and I need this job and I'd be so, so, so very good at it. Just ask me in for an interview and I promise I'll knock your sox off." Blech. (Hmmm... sox... Red Sox... I wonder if the Red Sox need help. I should add that to my list.)

The Chihuahua speaks

I can’t decide if time is passing slowly or quickly these days. I’m astonished that it’s already November, four days into the month even. Some days so much happens, I accomplish so much, that eight o’clock at night materializes and I feel like I should have long been in bed. Some days are a blip. Those “damn!” moments of lost hours. I can’t believe I’ve been back at school teaching for two weeks. I can’t believe that it’s only 10:46 pm.

Jason came home yesterday, for all of sixteen hours. He's gone again for at least another five days, if not nine or more. Jason's never been a big fan of New Orleans, but these days he can't stand to be here. I can't blame him entirely, and truthfully, he's saddled with a ton of work that is taking him elsewhere. I'm doing better than I thought I would alone in this city. I thought for sure that I would be frightend and more sad than I am. But I have to admit, last night, when he was home, I was strangely tired all night, as though I'd just been waiting for him to come home so I could get a really decent night's sleep.

I had a lovely ten-minute chat with a passel of seniors today about how easy it is for them to forget that 80% of their city is MIA. They’re thoughtful about it, keen to express their relative complacency with the situation, but overall it makes me a bit uncomfortable. These were our best and brightest students that I was talking to. Girls who are comfortable being introspective and self-critical, girls who look for ways to better examine the world around them. It’s so easy here, though, to go from your almost-normal home to your almost-normal school and suffer only a bit of annoyance that things aren’t exactly the way they were when you left them. For the most part, I’ve been so impressed with the way that so many teachers are actually trying to “teach” the hurricane. Our history faculty especially has all but abandoned their curricula to look at current events. But I’m disappointed that so many of the girls (and adults!) are so keen to settle with being pissed off that there’s not very much to do in the city these days.

Witness the city’s collective obsession with the status of the exiled New Orleans Saints. Good Lord, if there was ever an instance of misplaced concern, it’s this. Have you heard that Tom Benson, the 78 year old owner of the Saints, physically assaulted a member of the press and then vowed not to go to any of our “home” games for the next two years (“home” games referring to those played in Baton Rouge) because he fears for his life??? Sweet God Almighty, the city is in a tizzy. It’s at the front of every news broadcast. And hell, I like sports, been to a half dozen Saints games at least, but c’mon people.

I complain, but it’s not like we have anything else to really rally behind.

I said in my previous post that I’d talk about the state of the city. And the honest-to-goodness truth is that the state of the city is… huh? Best that I, certified news junkie, can tell is that there’s a whole lot of nuthin’ going on here. Yes, in the oasis that is Uptown, the quality of life improves every week. Places reopen. The world becomes cleaner and less smelly. But I (avowed conspiracy theorist) can’t help but wonder if someone high up isn’t dragging his heels about the rest of this place on purpose, so that Mother Nature has time to reclaim these ruined places for the wetlands that they should be. (And by high up, I clearly don’t mean W, seeing that we know he has zippo regard for the environment. God, perhaps? Or Bono? Yeah, okay, that’s just a little joke.) Working with Hal has shed light upon this Catch-22. Residents in the flooded area are struggling to save their homes from further damage, but prevented from doing any actual rebuilding because no one is sure what they’ll need to do to get reinsured. Some have said that houses below the floodplain will need to be raised above the 100 year flood level. For even the most wee of houses that means an investment of at least $30,000. Some have said you’ll be able to get regular insurance, but not flood insurance if you don’t raise your home. Right now you can’t get permits to do anything. So 80% of New Orleans is frozen in stasis. You can gut your home, but you can’t put it back together. Some reports have said it will be as “little” as 90 days before these people get answers, some reports have cited a figure of two years.

There is no plan. There are no public schools open. There are no solid plans to open public schools. No plans to bring back business. This week more than 50% of the faculty of Dillard University was laid off. Xavier University also laid off 80 faculty members. These are our two historically black colleges; Xavier sends (used to send) more black students to med schools than any other college in the country. Two weeks ago, Audubon laid off 700 employees, to the shock of the general population of New Orleans who had no idea that Audubon had more than a couple hundred staff.

All this is a gentle transition back to the state of me.

The “me” news for the week is that I’ve started to send out resumes elsewhere. I actually started last week, but am only willing to ‘fess up now. The guilt is enormous. Shattering. Not to mention the fact that every time I feel the smallest sliver of excitement about pursuing new avenues, I plunge into Dobby-like emotional flagellation (sorry to all those who are not Harry Potter fans for the obscure reference). I hate to leave this place. I’m so passionate about its recovery. But passion and optimism are not hand-in-hand in this case. I feel hopeless about my job opportunities here. And, to be wholly honest, I’ve been so thoroughly demoralized by what has happened at school, I do not think that I would accept my old job back if it was offered. If it was just me—if I felt somehow like I was the only person who’d been mistreated or wronged by the school—I might be okay with sucking it up and finding that morsel of resilience inside of me that would allow me to push on. After all, it’s an amazing place, this school. Amazing children, and above all else, amazing faculty. But the faculty has been battered, and really I feel like I was one of the least wounded among them. Those of you who know me well (even too well) know that I’m a frickin’ terrier when it comes to things I feel passionate about. My ex husband used to call me “The Chihuahua.” I love this school. I love the people who make up the faculty of this school. And I am resolute in my belief that they (we) have been wronged. To assume my old position (were it offered to me, which could easily not happen) would be to admit a tacit acceptance of the policies of the administration. For better or worse, I can’t do that. It may be a flaw in my character; I’ll accept that. It breaks my heart—I think only those who are passionately pursuing careers in education can understand how much—but I think my days at this school are numbered.

If you go back to my post of September 8, you’ll know that Pre-Katrina, I’d had thoughts of leaving New Orleans. Truly, these were thoughts centered on the fact that I’d chosen the wrong career path. No, not wrong. Just not final. I had the itch. Wanderlust.

We’ll see what comes of this. The weirdo optimist in me hopes that one morning I’ll wake to the news that New Orleans has a concrete plan for restoring the lost historic neighborhoods, reforming the pathetic school system, supporting both tourism and progressive business, and re-establishing the city as a cultural hub.

This afternoon I passed a recently-opened local stationary store. They had a banner outside that read “Return. Rebuild. Rejoice.” It made me cry.