With you but thinking of someone else

everyone here
knows that everyone here

is thinking 'bout somebody else

"Back 2 Good" by Matchbox 20

The song is about being with someone you don't love and realizing the ramifications later but it also makes me think about how many times I've wished that I were with someone other than my present company.
When I was a teen, I imagined being on vacation, standing on a Colorado mountain with my boyfriend instead of my family.
The angst of my local boyfriends not being my New York crush of all time.
College beaus that weren't another guy I really wanted.
Vacations with friends that could be imagined with the missing part of my heart.
Christmas and New Year's celebrations in the right setting but with the wrong person.
Though I've lived alone for over 20 years, I never felt so lonely as the time I sat in a noisy French Quarter bar holding the hand of my boyfriend of 2 years while New Orleans Saints fans cheered and partied at the thought of finally going to the playoffs in the 1991 Wild Card game. He wasn't THE ONE and I had known for quite a while. At the time, I didn't even know WHO I wanted, I just knew it wasn't him.
Thinking about that today, perhaps feeling a bit hormonal, makes me sad.
If you are with the person that you would hope were there, you are blessed.
If not, change it.
For me, sometimes nobody is better than somebody.

Makes me wish I could skate

Actually, I skate just fine. It is the stopping part that hurts.

How hilarious is this? Instead of running bulls thru the streets, an organizer gets Roller Girls to roll thru New Orleans' French Quarter and pummel the male runners.

The idea was to outfit these tougher-than-tough broads on skates, er -- ladies -- with cattle horns, Whiffle Ball bats and swimming pool noodles, and unloose them onto thrillseekers who would run from them. When Hanning inquired of the Rollergirls' availability last year, event coordinator Tracey Bellina, who skates under the pseudonym of "Archbishop Pummel," told him: "Sure, I've got a bunch of bad-ass chicks on wheels who probably wouldn't mind beating up on a bunch of guys."

Sigh.

If you ever saw me smack the butts of Mardi Gras revelers with a plastic flyswatter, you KNOW I would be fabulous at whacking guys with whiffle ball bats. Maybe too fabulous.

FULL Story LINK

NOLA Bulls Organization info

MORE Photos

New Orleans blend vodka from Absolut

Yesterday I was wandering the aisles of my local Market Basket grocery and happened upon the display of Absolut vodka's newest infused blend - New Orleans, flavored with mango and black pepper.

Now, I ask you, when you consider a NOLA vodka blend, would you ever combine MANGO and BLACKPEPPER? I didn't think so. The sensory experience you would more likely conjure is the blend of cheap orange juice, cigarette smoke, the heart beating sensation of just dodging a stray bullet and that wonderful only-in-New Orleans brew of what I call French Quarter party gravy: the condensational mix of spilled beer, urine, and vomit. (Party gravy will ruin a pair of shoes.)

Good idea, Absolut, great intention. Not so great research.

Hurricanes and Skateboards

Last week, my life mate, TiVo, recorded an unlikely show for me. Using his artificial intelligence and my Wish List key word option of "New Orleans", TiVo found "DRIVE skateboarding" on Fuel TV.

Skateboarder dude Mike Vallely visits New Orleans (Season 2 Episode 3) to survey the hurricane Katrina damage. Mike begins in the historic French Quarter with beautiful video of skateboarders. The interviews are geared toward the skate culture before and after Katrina (in New Orleans speak, that is pre-K and post-K). New challenges and playgrounds are created by storm debris, abandoned buildings, and junked construction materials. But the tour of the Ninth Ward erased all thoughts of skateboarding and Mike was eloquent in his words that he could not consider skating where so many lost so much. Black and white images of terrible destruction illustrate without deliberate emotional manipulation.



As a 42 year old woman whose only link to skateboarding is my junior high boyfriend, I am not Fuel TV's desired demographic much less a DRIVE skateboarding viewer. But I am a fan. I thank Drive for respecting the pain of the damaged areas. The victim's trauma was not trivialized by skaters having fun on their ruined properties. And skater kids can see a different view of New Orleans and hurricane Katrina aftermath not found anywhere else.



Check out the 3 minute video,
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2017754651



http://www.driveskateboarding.com/



http://www.fuel.tv/