No-ahleans

At least, that's how I think you're supposed to say it, really, if you're from here. I'm not, so I enunciate and the locals look at me pityingly as if to say..."poor white lady clad in black from head to toe (NB: this is bad because it's too hot here to wear black from head to toe, which means I can't dress myself) who can't even talk right." It's a sad statement on my adaptability that I can blend in Brussels but not here.


The first (and last) time I was here it was 2001 and people were still pretty freaked out about September 11th. Now it seems worse, like Katrina was so bad that no one's bothered to be freaked out because they're just too tired. But maybe I'm projecting what I think I would feel and am just being uppity (and talking wrong).


I'm here, in New Orleans (as we northerners say), at a lovely conference full of smart people. They're also nice, which is good because I don't have the emotional stamina to deal with mean smart people while I'm badly dressed and talking funny.

Yesterday, I made a ven diagram.

Fun.