The fortunate part about not knowing what lies ahead of you is that sometimes, not knowing makes it possible to muddle through a difficult situation. Sometimes foreknowledge only makes what is coming more difficult to bear.

Kat finally found her roll of film from our trip to New Orleans earlier this year. It contains some pictures that I referenced in a previous entry, The Jester of Jackson Square. They're linked in that entry now, if you're curious to see photos of the balloon artist (Checkers) I was describing.

There are also a few other pictures from that trip which don't fit in with the theme of that entry. Full photoset here.

If you looked closely, one could see the echoes of stubble tracing a faint shadow of pattern-baldness that meandered from ear, to crown, to ear. His eyes didn't always match the laughter in his voice, but when they did, the lines radiated, like spokes, from their corners.

When he told stories the words came out razor-sharp. Carnival patois, to match the oversized, indifferently polished black clown shoes he wore. I didn't know how much of his story to believe; after all, he was a balloon artist hustling tourists next to Café du Monde.

But the worker at the tourist information desk knew him, and their nods to each other indicated that perhaps they'd known each other for some time.

We left Friday morning, just after six a.m. I awakened, groggy from fitful sleep, and dashed around the house doing errands in a stream of fogged consciousness; as I was putting out the trash for pickup, Kat and Sean arrived. We packed, we left.

The second half-hour of a long road trip is always somewhat disappointing. The rush and crush is over; you've left, and there's nothing to get excited about except the mind-numbing expanse of open road. Six and a half hours of highway driving to get to New Orleans.

I think perhaps yesterday just wasn't a day to write. Then again, yesterday was just an odd day in general—eight hours' worth of busywork at my company with no real pressing things to get done. I've been trying to work on a logging script so that I can better analyze the hits I'm getting on domesticat, but the script kept bombing out on me. By the time I fled my cube and drove home, I was annoyed, aggravated, and had a pounding headache.Luckily, the spousal unit was preparing dinner. That gave me a chance to take an aspirin, grab the nearest willing cat (last night's volunteer for Onerous Petting Duty was Tenzing—brutal life, isn't it?) and flop on the couch for a while until I was back to my normal goofy, chipper self. The cat was gratified by the petting (there was much shameless purring and tail-thumping), I was gratified by the dinner and the release from my headache, and thus I got a load of laundry done instead of just sitting on my ass all evening.

Yes. I have now seen the tackiness that is New Orleans. Good grief, what heavy food they've got there. I have to agree with Jen, who commented on the total lack of vegetable matter being served at every meal we had there.

(full photoset is on flickr)

SPAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZ! Okay, okay, I do this before every single trip that I take. I know that spazzing and flitting about the night before a trip is not healthy in the least, but that's probably why I do it.

N'awlins, here I come. Be afraid…be very afraid…I'm bringing my camera and we all know what THAT means—incriminating pictures of my traveling mates!

It looks to be a seven-hour drive, which isn't too terrible considering that I'm going to start driving at about six a.m. I figure I'm going to hit Birmingham in the height of rush hour, and that it should be smooth sailing from there on out. As usual I'm overprepared—I have bottled water and munchies to take with me, as well as an umbrella or two since it's supposed to rain this weekend.

I have to confess. I watched The Truth About Cats And Dogs for something like the zillionth time on television last night. For the zillionth time, it put that hangdog "awwwwww!" look on my face, and when it was over, I had this irresistible urge to cuddle my cats.

I don't know what it is about this movie that does it to me every time. Maybe because I project waaaaay too much of myself onto the Janeane Garofalo/Quasimodo character. You know the type all too well—the person whose agility with words is almost enough to make anything—even wild passionate luuuuuuv with sexy brunette British men—possible.

I probably need psychiatric help for this, don't I?