Miss Jess'ca, can I please buy you a bee-uh?

I have been trying to write this blog for 3 days and it has proved difficult. I've been a strange mood since I got back from New Orleans. If you think I was being weird with you this week at some point, I probably was. Sorry about that. My emotions are all over the place. One minute I'm feeling happy, the next I'm angry and pushing people away.

Not really sure what triggered all of this. Could be the pile of old letters I accidentally stumbled upon, could be the binge drinking in NOLA, could be the string of bad decisions I've made recently, could be the winter darkness, could be all of the starving people in Haiti, could be the fact that I haven't spoken to one of my best friends for 2 months, could be the insomnia, could be the Jeff Buckley song on repeat. Who knows. Luckily, I seem to be climbing out of this emotional hole I have dug for myself so hopefully tomorrow will be better. Jeddy, ever the sage, said earlier this week, "Happy endings are stories that haven't finished yet." I'm not sure if that's supposed to be optimistic or just plain sad, but it's something to think about.

I'm really here to write about my adventures in New Orleans, not complain about my sad life. All week, my readers (all 6 of them) have been asking me when my next blog will be published so here you go.

I arrived in NOLA on Thursday afternoon, just in time for rush hour traffic. Amy pulled up to the curb in the Subaru and promptly popped in a little Snoop Dogg for old time's sake. Amy and I do two things well: eat and drink. First stop after the airport was dinner at 13. There was some confusion since Amy told me it was called 7, but it really is 13. Anyway, we had some delicious tater tots and a couple of beers while we discussed Curtis Mayfield, the way one checks a state off his/her list, the awesome jukebox, how I should not make eye contact with people and how the service sucked. As we walked out the door, the drunk gentleman who was sitting next to us said, "Now that they're gone, let's eat the good stuff left on their plates."


I guess I should mention that Amy dropped her BlackBerry into the toilet the night before I arrived. Apparently a cockroach scared the bejesus out of her and down the shitter the Burry went. In order to dry it out she stuck it in a bag of rice for two days...it kind of worked.


We drove home so I could change my clothes and wash the airplane smell off me. Then we were off to try a blueberry mojito, which was delicious, but the bartender was an a-hole.




Next on to Amy's neighborhood bar, Henry's. Amy has been telling me all about the characters she hangs out with at Henry's and I felt like I already knew most of them. Everyone welcomed me with open arms and free drinks!

Steve, the moody owner

Darren, the hot bartender

Joe, the Fire Marshall

Amy and Joe happen to live across the street from Henry's so we decided to take the party to the porch. Mike and Mike II joined us.

The next morning we woke up bleary eyed and hungry. Fortunately, Amy had made reservations at the New Orleans culinary institution, Commander's Palace. Unfortunately, the reservations were at 12:30 and we were starving at 9:30 am. We kept ourselves occupied until 12 with Facebook, random e-mails, crackers and the Food Network.

Commander's Palace is fancy, but they have tacky decor. We were greeted by about 20 people on our way to the table and they had Miss Amy's info on file. She's an important New Orleans institution as well. Lunch is fun at the Palace because martinis are 25 cents all afternoon long! Let's just say we got our money's worth...best buzz I ever got off $1. The food was amazing too. I had turtle soup with extra sherry (yes, real turtle and it was quite tasty), shrimp, grits, bread pudding and chicory coffee. The bread pudding had this whiskey cream sauce that looked a lot like a certain bodily fluid. I ate it anyway.

We returned home full of food and feeling good for 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon. Amy turned on some music and took off her pants.

Where do you go in New Orleans when you're ready to dance? Why Henry's, of course. I was fortunate to meet even more local characters and get free beer. I should tell you that I had a hard time deciphering the New Orleans accent. I couldn't understand half of what anyone was saying to me. I did understand one word: beer. But in NOLA the boys say it like "bee-uh" and it's very cute.

Michael, the Silver Fox


Mike, Chuck, Random Guy


Timmy, the bartender who lives behind the bar; the building, not the actual bar


Anonymous Ashley


Lars from DC


Stacy from NC. She's not fond of Mormons or Prop 8, but she liked me and I liked her back.

I gave Amy some love

Amy and I were so tired from drinking in the afternoon we were in bed by midnight. Which is probably a good thing because Saturday turned out to be quite the experience.

Running a Marathon: NOLA style

Saturday started out in a leisurely manner. We were well rested and as usual, hungry. I'm a big fan of eating breakfast food and drinking alcohol simultaneously so we headed to Bywater BBQ for brunch. While I was sipping on one of the best bloody marys I'd ever had, I thought I saw Mike Ross from Henry's. And wouldn't you know it really was him and his out-of-town posse? We joined them for some more bloody marys, a few rounds of categories and a small Prop 8 protest. Turns out they were just starting on a historical pub crawl...27 bars, 7 miles. Amy and I weren't really sold on it, but we decided to make a few stops for fun. We ended up sticking around for about 14 hours and I'm sorry to tell you it wasn't very historical, but it was historic.

First up: Markey's Bar

On the road...people were already starting to crawl

The Friendly Bar. We had to be buzzed into this bar, ironically, not so friendly

Props to Stacy for taking pictures of the signs...I forgot

This place had the dirtiest bathroom in New Orleans and no toilet paper

I peed here

Hand Grenades in the French Quarter

This place was TINY

Pat O'Brien's for a Hurricane

At this point Amy and I were hungry again, so we hopped in a cab and made our way to Dick and Jenny's. This place is pretty famous and I have no idea how we got right in on a Saturday night. We sat down at the bar to eat some frog legs. Amy ordered us margaritas; I couldn't handle the tequila so she had mine. I vaguely remember eating some flounder and grits.

Next thing I knew, we were back at Henry's. Joe was there!

So was Mike Ross and part of his posse

This is Peppa at the end of the night, not looking so hot. No idea what my hair is doing.

We made it back across the street to Amy's house at some point. How I kept track of my phone, camera and purse all night I'll never know. When I woke up the next morning, I found I had erased all of my texts and phone calls. So I apologize if you received anything inappropriate, but I hope it made you smile, at least.

This is how Amy and I recover from a 14 hour pub crawl through the streets of New Orleans: we buy a whole damn Popeye's store and watch a little Entourage. I never get to eat Popeye's at home and I enjoyed it, throughly. I ate about 2 bites of all of the sides and all of the chicken skin, because really, that's the best part.

Sadly, my trip to New Orleans came to an end and I can't believe how quickly the weekend went by! My flights back home were hideously long and I didn't arrive at my house until 1:30 am. But I must say it was worth all the trouble to spend some much needed quality time with Amy!

Every Picture Tells a Story

Wow. It's been forever since I've posted anything. First off, yay for Barack winning the election! Second, I'm leaving for New Orleans tomorrow so I don't have very much time to write. Consequently, this blog will have to be mostly pictorial in nature.

I went to a couple of Halloween parties. I'm not really that into Halloween or dressing up at all for that matter. But I decided to play along this year, so I was Annie Hall at Les and Sonny's party.

I didn't dress up for the other Halloween party, but I had several shots of something called acid and had a great time!

Heather's family came up from Moab and my G-ma turned 80!

Mabe and Bill had an Election Night party and we ate some traditional Alaskan fare: moose steaks, salmon and Alaska Amber. Bill shot the 1400 pound moose himself! Unfortunately, my camera battery died so I don't have too many pictures. We ended up celebrating (drinking, laughing, playing Wii) until 5 am. Go Obama!










Last Friday I went to the Prop 8 protest at Temple Square with Metra and Jen. 3000 people showed up to support marriage equality and it was awesome!






Later on we ventured over to book club at Diane's to discuss the Story of O. This book is not for the faint of heart. It was an unusual selection for us, but the discussion was certainly interesting. I wish I could repeat some of the sordid details, but they're just a little bit too risque for the general public.

Monty and I finally resumed our ethnic tour of Salt Lake. It had been way too long...spring sometime? I think it was the Tibetan place. Anyway, we ended up at Vienna Bistro, ate some cheese, delicious food we couldn't pronounce and drank a lot of strong beer. Afterwards we headed over to the Broadway to see Religulous. I'm happy to say I was able to see the entire movie this time without being accosted by a drunk man.

Some other cool stuff I've done lately: got my haircut, Jazz game with Monty, went to the ballet with my mom, saw the Body Worlds exhibit. I'm so, so excited to get to New Orleans tomorrow for my visit with Amy. It has been way too long since I've seen her! I'm looking forward to trying a hand grenade (per Brian's instructions), eating some crawfish and driving aimlessly around the city playing air drums.