And I won't drive a truck anymore

Ugh, where was I?

There was a lot of drinking. What I can't understand about Mardi Gras is why, having had only a glimpse of it of course, it doesn't annoy me. The air of revelry doesn't seem forced or ugly, as it sometimes does. As far as I can tell, it is all honest, organic decadence. 

We went to Endymion, which is huge and the floats are insane. You start to get very excited about catching these silly plastic beads (though actually the one part of the whole thing that gives me pause is all the waste. Someone must manufacture millions of chains of beads and half of them end up crunched up on the street because nobody picks them up if they touch the rather disreputable looking pavement.)

It's good. Strangers talk to each other, though some of that is just the south. 

We didn't go to Galatoire's because it was fucking closed. I wasn't too devastated as we went to Brennan's and it was a large, rich, overwhelming brunch. We could hardly talk on the walk home. Turtle soup with sherry, eggs Sardou, and bananas Foster which was invented there and which my mom has made since I was a kid and I can now report it is exactly the same on the mother ship. 

I did the other things I had meant to do, though. I walked down to the stairs down to the Mississippi very early Saturday and watched big ships navigate the curve. I got my muffuletta, which I just ate on the bus, which was perfection. 

I drank several hurricanes walking around on the street, and the moment you do this is the moment it's impossible to imagine why it's prohibited everywhere else. 

The weather held out all weekend. 

So I guess those are the highlights. Also as I was walking back to H's somewhat late, there were people on a stoop with instruments, and I don't think they all knew each other, but they started playing bluegrass and were actually very good, so I sat there for a little while. 

Last night around midnight I had a bout of anxiety about the fact that, having had what feels like a complete vacation, I am not heading home but heading on. These are probably going to happen along the way. Anxiety is my old pal and I can generally manage it. 

The bus this morning left at 7:45. I fell asleep for a couple of hours which is great except that I missed the Atchafalaya swamp which I remember as interesting-looking. That part of east Texas after you cross the state line isn't. (Crossing the state line comes with a big emotional rush if you have a long-standing complicated relationship with Texas and the suspicion you'll never live there again.)

Killing time in downtown Houston at the Lone Star Saloon having a Shiner Bock. It's the only thing anyone drank in college and I still like it. They don't have a distributor in New York so you can't get it. 

Made some agonizing small talk with bar regulars. Caught the bus, which (to the shock of no sentient being) took an extra hour to get out of Houston at rush hour. Now seated beside some kid with a different sense of personal space than my own, ready to be in Dallas but not even in Corsicana.