What mortal, when he saw,
Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend,
Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:
"I have kept uninfringed my nature's law;
The inly-written chart thou gavest me,
To guide me, I have steer'd by to the end"?

Ah! let us make no claim,
On life's incognisable sea,
To too exact a steering of our way;
Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim,
If some fair coast have lured us to make stay,
Or some friend hail'd us to keep company.

Ay! we would each fain drive
At random, and not steer by rule.
Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain
Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive,
We rush by coasts where we had lief remain;
Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool.

No! as the foaming swath
Of torn-up water, on the main,
Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar
On either side the black deep-furrow'd path
Cut by an onward-labouring vessel's prore,
And never touches the ship-side again;

Even so we leave behind,
As, charter'd by some unknown Powers,
We stem across the sea of life by night,
The joys which were not for our use design'd;--
The friends to whom we had no natural right,
The homes that were not destined to be ours.


"Human Life" - Matthew Arnold

It's okay, to think about ending
And it's okay, to not even start
Put it away, wait 'til tomorrow
Put it away, and take care of your heart
of your heart

It's okay, to stay here forever
And it's okay to read in the dark
Put it away, wait 'til tomorrow
Put it away, and take care of your heart
of your heart
Just for a while, I'd seen you smile

"It's Okay to Think About Ending" - Earlimart

This is why I have to leave New Orleans.

The first episode of Treme was a little too impressionistic for me.

This second episode hit home on two points for me. And I want to contact David Simon in some way for so perfectly portraying the New Orleans tourist. Because all of us that were not born here but ended up here for one reason or another began as tourists. Unless you were lucky enough to have friends quickly show you the way or brave enough to ride your fixed-gear bike around, forget about showering for a couple days, and end up in the Marigny, then you were like those kids from Wisconsin.

I certainly was. I was a serious, shy, and completely green kid from Houston -- a big city with so little personality that to move to a big-ish city with a personality that eclipsed its size a million-fold was shocking. And so I started as a tourist. I only went places I could ride the street car too. I went to only a couple Mardi Gras parades. I went to the college bar and drank only amaretto sours. And for someone so serious-minded and interested in scholarly pursuits, I hated New Orleans my first year here.

But then I found my way, found my couple bars in the Quarter where I could drink underage and feel comfortable. This was my authentic experiences. And I think that's what's amazing. There's no one way to have an authentic experience here. I'm glad that's what David Simon played with in this last episode. Disdainfully calling "The Saints Go Marching In" an authentic song is laughable now because after the Saints victory, there is no more authentic song to portray joy and the spirit of New Orleans.

I expected that David Simon wanted us to feel disdain for those kids from Wisconsin. But actually I felt more disdain for the street musicians who poked fun at them. They tried to have fun the right way. They really wanted to know New Orleans. And they tried. Just as David Simon and the rest of us are probably hoping viewers outside New Orleans will feel while watching Treme, those Wisconsinites caught a glimpse and loved it. And if you love New Orleans, there's no wrong way to do it.

However, I feel like it's too cheese-tastic for me to want to go to to Bullet's bar now. Chris has been once before and I have thought about going before, but I don't want people there to look at me like, "You just came here because you saw it on Treme." But I shouldn't care.

Then of course there was the mention of cutting programs at Tulane. Chris and I actually wondered if they would cover this since Tulane no longer has an English graduate program and John Goodman's character is an English professor. And I couldn't believe that this happened to be one of his only scenes in the episode. The noise I made at the viewing party was one of anguish and laughter and sorrow. If Tulane had their fucking English PhD program, where do you think I would want to go? Where do you think I'd want to stay for my entire life? I would never leave.

My one complaint was the way the bar reacted when the Chief beat up (killed?) the kid who stole his tools. As he began punching him, the crowd was cheering and definitely on the side of the old man. I, on the other hand, rarely have this reaction. Violent revenge is never as cathartic for me; in fact, I was almost disappointed that the Chief even threw one punch. I was shocked how long it took those that were cheering to realize, "Oh, shit, he's gonna kill that guy." Then we lost our love-letter to New Orleans, noble old man who does no wrong, and can build a house from the ground up... and then the show got a lot more serious and a lot more complex and a lot... better.

I am in love with New Orleans but in just a few months, I will have to leave it.

This is a collection of my last days in a city I've lived in for the past six years.