6:34 p.m. - March 04, 2002
there's a jesus fish on our bus!
It took me nearly four years to learn that I can still hug Erik when he has a girlfriend. However innocent me hugging him may be, and it is, I've always felt wrong about 'territory infringement', whatever that means, but which is the phrase that always popped previously into my head and caused me to carefully measure out an arms-length and stay at least that far away. I think I'm over it now. Thank you, psyche.

Band: (chanting) Oh-two! Oh-two! Oh-THREE! Oh-TWO! Oh-THREE! Oh-TWO!!
Mike: (timidly, looking around for support) Uh, oh-four? anyone? oh-four? oh four? hello?

This whole Mike-Camille-David-Me-etc.etc.goddamn.etc. thing has been way too middle-school-esque for high school seniors. Erik, you make it sound like when after you told me, I told Camille and it was 'all over', it was something I took control over, which, put in the right way, could maybe be twisted enough to make it true. However, your chronology is fucked. She knew before I told her, and I told her before I talked to you. It was all over that very same day, if you really want to make it sound like the doomsday book of horror. And incidentally, now I know why David told me to go for Mike anyway; because he wanted Camille to himself. It all comes together right before my very eyes...
And with the mention that this has the potential to become something right out of Dawsons Creek except it won't because I think the situation has come to a stalemate: I am through with that topic (although still jealous of Camille) Who said that?

Billy: ::poke... poke... headbutt... poke::
Stuffed Deer Head: ::tumble.. CRASH::
Billy: Ow!
Band: BAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA..:choke: :gasp:...BAHAHAHAHAHAHA...........!!!!!!
Fodor: And this next very special award goes to Billy Bolsen for fighting a dead animal.... and losing.

When people in Mississipi and Louisiana called me 'ma'am', I thought they were being sarcastic. I laughed until they gave me puzzled looks, and then I stopped and took an innocent drink of water while I waited for them to go away so I could continue laughing undisturbed. The part that I found funniest was that people called me ma'am even when they were irritated with me, like the guy behind the counter at the restaurant whose accent I didn't understand and had to keep going 'what?' at, and after he'd repeated himself for the fifth time, with a horribly frustrated look on his face, he was still saying ma'am.

Tour Guide: You can all come closer... dont crowd the street... I mean, I don't bite. Not for at least another couple of hours, anyway....(this being said after he had demonstrated that he doesn't blink, can stop his pulse at will, and drank his own blood after cutting his wrist with his nails on the corner of Royal and St. Ann)
Random Freshman: ::faints::

There is definitely something about New Orleans. Everyone who says there's haunting there isn't lying or exaggerating, though 'haunting' might be a bad way to put it. It was best described by our tour guide: the sadness and regret and even the vengeance, it hangs in the air when it rains.

Kim (in a restaurant): Do you have any gumbo to go?
Kim (in the grocery store): Do you have any canned gumbo?
Kim (to a random person on the street): Do you know where I can find some gumbo?
Kim: (post gumbo discovery)(in the aptly named Gumbo Shop): ________.
Me: Let me take a photo of victory.

I liked the city, all hauntings aside. If it hadn't been 30 degrees the entire time it would have been even better. I saw a clown with a dead mouse that he made jump out at people.

((Clown: (right in tour guide's face) ::stare...:: ::stare....::
Tour Guide: Eeeek!
Clown: Heh! Heh! Heh!
Tour Guide: Now in New Orleans when we have a heckler like this, what we all do is say in unison.. 'Be Gone!!' like this. Now let's say it together...
Us: Beeee goooone!
Clown: Then I'll seeeeee you in your dreeeams!! ::skips away down the road cackling to himself::
Rob: That guy in my dream might be some version of hell.
Eric: Maybe after hella acid...

))and a guy decked out in full Tin Man makeup, as well as a guy looking to collect donations who handed out tickets for 'being too pretty' and 'guy watching' and asked for ten dollars for the children's fund. It was really creative.

Mike:(on Bourbon St):I'm so proud that I was with Ian when he saw his first actual breast!!

I wouldn't like to live there, though, I don't think. It's really touristy. All the shops along the French Quarter are geared towards souvenir beads, masks, and T-shirts, which is all very nice if you're visiting, but if I lived somewher that beautiful, I wouldn't want to see reminders of it everywhere I went, that this place wasn't really built for me, but for people visiting, and all the beautiful architecture doesn't really mask anything intriguing, not on the surface at least, just tourist shops. I know if I did live there, though, I'd wander around looking at all the abandoned houses and the dirty brick walk and wonder what happened there to make everything so heavy and ominous and foreboding, like there's childhood monsters at every corner waiting to jump out. And I'd read up on the history of the city until my eyeballs fell out and then wander around looking at everything some more with a different view. It's the kind of city I could really lose myself in.

Sign: We strive to serve our customers equally, regardless of (blah blah blah..)
Me (reading from across the room without my glasses, not that I ever wear them anyway): We strip to serve all Catholics equally?

I'd eat some good food, anyway....
Our hotel was shaped like a cross.

Rachel (jumping up and down in horror, pointing at the side of our bus): There's a Jesus fish on our bus! There's a Jesus fish on our bus! Aauuhggghhhhh!

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