Tiger Stadium and SEC Football

Last weekend was a weekend of unexpected happenings. Last minute Friday afternoon, I decided to drive up to Baton Rouge to meet my friend and some of her friends, who I guess I can start calling my own friends soon as well. We got dressed up and went out to dinner and for a few drinks. What started out as a couple of drinks turned into Sake Bombs, Vegas Bombs, and a whole lot of vodka, though you won’t catch me complaining. It was an excellent night filled with good people, good drinks, and good conversations. I sort of had one of those “wow you’re absolutely right” moments with my friend, and it definitely helped me figure some things out for myself.

Saturday morning I woke up at my new friend’s house, used her shower, and we cracked open a couple of Coors Lights as we donned our make-up, primped our hair, and got ready for a day of tailgating at Louisiana State University. If there’s one thing I thought I knew how to do well, being from Philadelphia, it was tailgating. However, college football is a whole different ball game (no pun intended). When I would tailgate at USC, I swore it was an awesome party. I would pay $30 for free food and a solid 2 beers. That was the Pac-10 (Pac-12 now I guess you’d say). Down here in Louisiana, things are run a little differently. The sponsored tailgates are more fruitful, more available, and more interesting, to say the least. For $10 I drank all the beer I could drink and ate all the deep fried turkey I could eat. LSU played the Gamecocks from the other USC that day, so there was a game at this tailgate that involved a cock, a game board, poop, and a lot of money. Some would call it animal cruelty, but Tigers call it exciting.

I made my way into Tiger Stadium that night, and I don’t I’ve ever been to a louder football game. It wasn’t even the biggest game of the season, but in the SEC, every game is the biggest game of the season. When most of these players are looking to get drafted, when the odds of playing in the National Championship Bowl Game are high, and when the fans are that dedicated, the football game experience is elevated 100-fold. I can now officially say I’ve been to an SEC, and more specifically and LSU, football game and I survived.

New Orleans Saints

Yesterday I flew into New Orleans after a nice weekend with my family.  It was the early afternoon, and the Saints were playing the Chargers last night for Sunday Night Football.  The city was flooded with people dressed in black and gold.  The parking lots were lined with tailgates, the bars were spilling over, and the sidewalks were packed.  I can't tell if the tailgating is bigger here than it is in Philly, or if it  just looks bigger because it's so dense.  New Orleans is not only smaller than Philadelphia, the Superdome is downtown.  In Philadelphia, all the stadiums are in South Philly, not Center City, and there are plenty of parking lots surrounding the area.  It's also a newly discovered to me fact that New Orleanians drink more an party harder than Philadelphians.  That's just my opinion though, at least.

I met with a couple friends in the parking lot across the street for a ticketed event tailgate.  My friend Andrew had extra tickets and we enjoyed free food and drinks before the game started.  Once kickoff happened we made our way to a nearby pizza place and fed our drunk munchies.  It was a fun day that turned into a fun night that ended early enough for a "school night".

This city is a lot of fun, and I'm here for the ride.  I definitely like it here.

Well baby, you're already in that cage...

It's important not to take life too seriously.  Though sometimes, you need to take a few steps back and ask yourself, am I not being serious enough?  Being young, wild, and free are all good things for a girl who just moved to a new city in all her single-self-glory.  But is being free really free, or am I locking myself in a cell of lonely?  Whenever I meet somebody that has the potential to be someone important in my life, I put up so many walls around myself.  There's the "I'm single, I don't have real relationships" wall, the "I don't like you, even if I really do" wall, the "I won't let myself give in because I don't want to get hurt" wall, the "I'm too young to take things seriously" wall, and the infamous "what if I meet somebody better" wall.  It's a pentagon almost as secure as The Pentagon.  The list of people that have cracked those walls is very short, but I think I'm starting to learn that if I don't break one down every so often, I may never find that person that is supposed to knock down all the walls and be in my life for all the right reasons.  So here's the big question.  Why do I put up these walls in the first place?  I've had my fair share of bad luck in relationships... whether they're actual boyfriend-girlfriend relationships or un-established situations, for lack of a better term.  So, I guess I put these walls up to protect myself, to make my own luck, and to avoid caring about something, anything, that could cause me pain in the end.

Now I'm living in a new city, meeting new people, and getting the opportunity to start on a new journey for myself.  I am letting this adventure called Life create its own heading and sale away.  I am still young, I am still pretty wild, and I will always be free, but free now has a new definition.  Letting myself care about something, acknowledging that it's happening, and giving in to adventure are all aspects of being free now.  Instead of being "free" and locking myself behind Berlin walls of emotional connection, I will be free and live outside the Iron Curtain I created for myself.  You can't be happy for the rest of your life if you don't make a few mistakes along the way.  You can't run if you don't walk first, or if you don't trip and scrape your knee a couple of times.  I didn't agree with this when she said it, but I think I agree fully now.  My sister said she'd rather get hurt one hundred times before finding someone who never hurts her again, rather than living her life without pain, but also without love.  So I guess for now I'm ready to let life happen, and if I get hurt I'll move on.  Everything always works out in the end, and if things aren't working out, then it's not the end.  I'm done living in the cage I put myself in, and I'm ready to enjoy the best things this great big world as to offer me.

Back to Writing

Well I guess it's been about three months since my last post, and even then I guess I didn't post too much.  I've been living in New Orleans for a little over four months now, and I've gone through many changes thus far.

I moved into a new apartment in July.  It's been coming along slowly but surely... and it's a place I can call my own.  I don't share it, I don't consult anybody on what they want done, I chose my furniture, I chose my upholstery, I chose my kitchen appliances, I chose my television, and I do my own grocery shopping.  I love it all.

The first weekend I moved in, a friend of mine and I did the Running of the Bulls.  In New Orleans, Running of the Bulls doesn't exactly involve bulls.  Instead, roller derby girls from across the country gather in the city with horns and whiffle ball bats, and essentially go after people "goring" them in a 5K around the city.  It was a lot of fun, and just another reason for New Orleanians to wake up at 8:00 in the morning and start drinking.  That same weekend I got myself a roommate.  Franklin isn't just any roommate though, he is the most adorable kitten that was rescued from the middle of Claiborne St.  He may very well be up there in a 3-way tie with my most favorite roommates of all time, except when he bites me, or when he meows 30minutes before my alarm goes off.

The first weekend of August I made my way back to St. Croix for Suzzy and Brandon's wedding.  It was an absolutely amazing weekend, but unfortunately very likely my last visit to St. Croix.  I hope it isn't that way, but I'm worried it might be.  It kind of solidified that story for me.  Life on St. Croix is just another page in my book of life.

Hurricane Isaac came through the City of New Orleans.  Luckily, downtown, we didn't lose power or cable, but the wind and rain was bad enough to be kept form work.  So we stayed inside, I met a lot of neighbors, and I made a lot of friends.  I'm almost happy the storm came through, at least for my life.  Things really started to improve since for me, yet unfortunately there was a lot of hard times in this city due to it.  Sometimes, when you're not ready to give up on something, you can't see that it's supposed to change.  You give it your all until you have nothing left to give, and once it's all gone, you realize change is inevitable, and actually a good thing.

My life is changing, and I'm feeling really good about it lately.  Here we go.

Running

I made a friend a few weeks ago who trains with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training.  She recently ran the San Diego half marathon, and ran a full marathon back in January.  The great thing is, when she's not running with her team, she does shorter runs during the week, and when we met I mentioned how I wish I had someone to run with.

So this past week she invited me to go running with her.  We hopped onto the Streetcar tracks on St. Charles Ave and ran about a mile and a half uptown, and a mile and a half back, and I really enjoyed it.  We set up a planned interval for running and walking, and I think it made running easier and made me run faster this way.  I can't wait to go running again next week with her!  Running partners give me so much more motivation, and who knows, maybe one day I'll run a marathon.

My Jeep!

My Jeep finally arrived to New Orleans today.  I signed for it at lunch time but the battery was dead.  I got home from work, and it still wouldn't start.  Chiso came by and gave me a jump.  With it finally running we brought it to Autozone to replace the battery... it had absolutely zero charge.  After all that car drama, we finally got it figured out, took it home, and brought my rental back to the airport.  I finally have my car back, and no longer have to drive a silly rental.  I may need to repair the a/c, replace the rearview mirror, fix the antenna, headlight, reverse light, subwoofer, and spare tire... but it's finally here!

I am so happy! (:

Bar Crawls and Friends

Last Saturday I met up with a friend for lunch on St. Charles Ave. for a good salad and a beer.  My healthy afternoon turned into a crazy night.  Since I was already on St. Charles I decided to meet up with my roommate, Ryan, who was participating in the 610 Stompers Bar Crawl.  So I hopped on the streetcar and got off at Fat Harry's where I found hundreds of people with matching t-shirts, mustaches, and beers dancing down the street to their next stop on their crawl.  It was crazy, everyone was drinking, dancing, and just crowding one of the busier streets in the city.  It poured down rain, I got soaked, but that did not stop me from dancing from one bar to the next with the crowd.  It was a lot of fun and I got to make friends with some of Ryan's friends.  Needless to say I did absolutely nothing on Sunday until Ryan convinced me to go running with him.

This past Friday night Chiso and I went out for drinks, and to find out how small this city (world) actually is, we ran into a bunch of people from work.  It was completely random, but we happened to all be at the same bar.  It was a lot of fun, we all decided to hang out together and head down to a late night bar for some dancing.  It's even smaller of a world because once we got there we ran into one of Chiso's co-workers.  It was a completely random night, but a good time in the Garden District that night.