catching up

(Tuesday, August 5, 2008)

After eleven days of hauling boxes and nesting bikes and placating cats, I’m starting to feel like I live here, in Baton Rouge. I biked to work this morning through the damp haze left by Edouard (how many vowels in that, again?) – whose lashing rain was probably the reason neither of us slept last night. It has cooled things off, although the air is still thick, and condensation clings to my AC-cooled bike as soon as I take it outside (as Alex S. said yesterday, “It’s not the heat that will get you, it’s everyone reminding you how humid it is.” Word.). My work location is Buzz Café, for the moment, until the fine people at Cocks Cable deem us worthy of internet installation – we ordered service just before leaving Carrboro – at least ten days ago. My route from home to here takes me through six blocks of our awesome neighborhood, Spanish Town (more later), and five or so blocks of staid, linear state buildings and banks, in different shades of grey, surrounded by neat green plots of grass. Downtown, this morning I saw exactly one person– an overweight woman hauling herself up the steps to a bank entrance, dressed for a desk job, holding a burlap-looking shoulder bag that says, “Jesus,” in big purple letters. In Spanishtown, I saw: mardi gras beads hanging from tree branches and power lines, three people lounging on porches (they all waved), Spanish moss, parrots hanging in cages on porches (two). And kudzu, of course. The road itself is asphalt in Spanish town and cement downtown – as I roll along, the swish, thump, swish, thump of passing from one section to another reminds me of college roadtrips to Myrtle Beach – I-85 into South Carolina is paved the same way (cement is cooler, I guess).
Time to break for work, and preserve this sweet deal that is my job.