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All the news that is not fit to print

Newsflash: drunk 30 year old father accidentally drops his two year old daughter into crawfish boil – this is front page Times Picayune – and why I miss the daily local paper. Nationwide: Treme is signed up for a second season because the reviews were so stellar after the first premiere (did anyone read the Bayou Report? 4 out of 10, people, u heard?) Land of Tin: Yesterday, I walked downstairs and there before me…

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Another Spring

Spring Shall Return to the City By virtue of the prime minister’s photogenic smile Adonis-like the murdered youth shall return from Hades and other victims too The president shall clear his throat and the terrorists will surrender arms and get jobs at the Mehran Bank In the afternoon the moment the Chief Minister’s yawn is ended the citizenry shall set out for movie houses and theaters Topless nymphomaniac girls will come out to the French…

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The little things that light up your life

The irises are now waxing in their beauty at the park – they come in purple, yellow, pink, orange, red, and white – so awesome. I see them and I feel instant joy. Yesterday as I was speaking to my friend who was fishing on the bayou, another neighbor was getting in her car and I asked her how she was doing and she said, “GREAT, it’s spring after all!” And I concurred. Spring makes…

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What’s in your tool box?

I learned to live with my anxiety by developing what the guy who helped me learned to modify my behavior called a tool box. Not a real tool box of course, more like a fig newton of the imagination. But in the toolbox is knowledge – what causes anxiety, and tools like rhymes or songs that help pull you out of the anxious moment and keep you centered. I have developed a similar toolbox for…

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Sign me up

There is a report in the NYT about the use of hallucinogens to help overcome depression. Interestingly enough the core of the findings is that patients who took the hallucinogens were able to move past their anxieties and perceived boundaries of self to feel more united and empathetic with others, helping boost their overall moods. And most remarkably after the experience they were able to better accept uncertainty as a constant.

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Treme gets a 4 out of 10 on the bayou scale

We sidled up to our friend and neighbor’s couch to watch the premier of Treme. I came to the show with trepidation that New Orleans is in essence an enigma and hard to capture, but willing to suspend my disbelief to join in the fun. Half way into the plotless story I had this weird feeling that someone was staring into our daily life here in New Orleans and viewers would need a translator because…

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French Quarter Fest

Despite there being so many groups I wanted to see at French Quarter Fest, it has been one of those weekends, the kind where you take one baby step forward and about ten sideways. We had vouched to go to Gal Holiday and then to Astral Project, but alas, even those have eluded us because the truth is you can’t make a plan. We get up and we start the day and we just start…

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