dive into mark^2.0

D and I took a vacation to New Orleans. Alone. The Kid stayed with his grandparents. He had a wonderful time without us, and we had a wonderful time without him.

We walked all up and down Magazine Street and saw all the shops D wanted to see (Katy Beh, Cameron Jones, Thomas Mann). We went to the New Orleans Museum of Art and took a streetcar back down Canal Street. We walked all around the French Quarter, had iced coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde (it was 90 degrees in October), went to Art for Art’s Sake on Julia Street, and, for one brief shining moment, considered spending $20,000 we don’t have on a painting from a gallery on Royal Street. Then we thought of The Kid, and decided that money we don’t have would be much better spent on his college tuition instead. By the time he’s 18, tuition will be $63,000 a year, and the painting will be worth $63 on eBay.

Also, we slept whenever we wanted, fucked whenever we wanted, and went out to eat at expensive restaurants twice a day. Oh, the restaurants. New Orleans is famous for its food. Outside the obvious tourist traps, bad restaurants don’t survive very long in New Orleans. For the amount of money we spent in one night at Brennan’s, I could have upgraded to Movable Type.

I also recommend Herbsaint on St. Charles, although our waiter appeared to be a cross between a struggling actor and a used car salesman. Also Mr. B’s Bistro, Bravo’s Italian Kitchen, and a charming bakery in the 600 block of St. Charles whose name also starts with a “B” but escapes me at the moment.

The only downside to going on vacation alone is that, on the way home, our carry-on baggage consisted entirely of breast milk on ice. (It survived, 7 hours door to door. Or rather, fridge to fridge.) This included going through security, of course, which required staring down a poorly trained TSA agent with an expression that conveyed, as unthreateningly as possible, “This is just an average day for me. How ’bout you?” I suppose it could have been worse.

I took exactly two photos during the entire trip, both in the Atlanta airport, both of a digital newspaper kiosk that can print out a local paper on demand from cities around the world. A fascinating concept, actually, and an airport is certainly the place for it. Not everyone wants to read News McNuggets from USA Today.

Unfortunately, the implementation left something to be desired, as you can see from the close-up: