TUESDAY, 7 MARCH, 2000, PHILADELPHIA MARDI GRAS

It’s Mardi Gras and for the second year in a row, I’m wondering just what the fuck I was thinking when I moved away from New Orleans. I took a large bag filled with aging, dusty beads from my debaucherous years in Louisiana to work today, and spent the morning tossing them at people, many of whom needed to be reminded what day it was. The concept that someone could not know what day Mardi Gras falls on is a sad statement. And it is also indicative of my distance from a place that celebrates it with such aplomb and cheesy crassness and bilious glitz. Informal party tonight. The weather is warm enough finally that girly blender drinks in the yard are permitted, so tonight it’s mom’s pink gin fuzzy-foofies. But it is still not the same. Mope, mope. Grump, grump. I don’t want to talk about it any more. Here. Go read a couple of stories that I set in New Orleans: “A 19th Century Ladies’ Afternoon Picnic at the Monster Truck Show” “Tea at the Dollhouse”