'the mind boggles, baby.'

thank you, tom. and hello, my love gators

i have been back since tuesday from my FUCKING INDESCRIBABLY INCREDIBLE journey from pittsburgh to new orleans to austin, texas and back. i loved every moment. almost 80 hours on the road. met quite a few memorable strangers. saw some gorgeous breaks of dawn. heard some righteously jazzy and some delightfully ear-shattering music. felt some smashing sex. smelled some drool-worthy smells of the southern and creole variety. and tasted the drool-worthiest of drool-worthies, speaking of drool-worthy.

well, that covers all the senses and as usual, i find it hard to write about my travels because there is so much to say and think about and gaze back upon and it never goes down on the page just quite as it was experienced...

at least not when you are using the internet at the coffee shop and only have an hour to get down to business. otherwise, i would write yinz a novel baby.

i hope you have been the peachiest peach since we last spoke!

monday. march 14th. afternoon
gentle, hushed rain. windshield wipers swishing diligently back and forth. a tuft of gray hair, nearing white, blowing sweetly away from an almost barren scalp two seats ahead. to me, a delicate realization of our existence. how wondrous and strange, the coming and the going (and the fact that there will be a going, both individually and ultimately, as a species) and all that lies in between. those last wisps of life, clinging. the hair, one of many parts of him to be done, to grow no more. or lets say, to finish. yes, i like that, and contemplated the change in meaning for quite a few moments, just now. for whatever reason, the scene atop that wrinkled noggin seems precious to me, like a buttercup in the breeze (and do you remember buttercups? bringing us tiny moments of joy in our youth, spreading the butter color to our own hands and giggling in the grass at recess). only it is a hair tuft in the path of the air-conditioning vent on a greyhound bus rolling south.

..................

arrived an hour before sunrise as i like to do to have a few hours with the streets to myself and a few other wandering or whatevering souls and time to find a proper place for optimum new-town sunrise observation. and then there were over twenty miles of roaming the city far and wide in which there was cafe au lait and beignets and gator sausage po'boys and jambalaya and bread pudding and groovy live jazz and delicious abita turbo-dog beer and bourbon street and drunks to boot and whiskey and sights and jams in the streets the french market and hot sauce in the streets and art in the streets and jams in the streets and the voodoo museum and a properly sketchy rexxystyle hotel and everyeveryeverywhere oh and to marigny away from the bourbon street idiocy at night to the apple barrel with zeke the awesome dog and rad jazz and peeps at the spotted cat and lots of cool, friendly strangers and blah blah blah. i loved it. one of my favorite cities in the country. and i have been to enough now to justifiably make this statement.

well. i'll shut up and let the photos speak.
best i could do with my cell-cam.

ciao baby







































to be continued..