please write my folks and throw away my key.

I feel that I probably will not end up living in Vancouver when I eventually end up in some place that I am supposed to be. My wanderlust will lead me to some where and I will fall in love and just never leave. I am not ready to stop traveling. I would like to go to Argentina next, however because of the nature of my life I have too many commitments at home to just run away. I envy those that have the courage to just up and leave whatever it is they have. It is not that Vancouver is a bad place, I love it, my family and friends are there. The city itself just needs so much work. It lacks in life and creativity. Which is why I am organizing a cabaret and different things that I want to do. Maybe I just need to get into the community of performers and organizers there. I am not sure who they are though and if I even want to do that in Van.

Last night I played Scattergories with a group of awesome people from Seattle. My life has changed in Vancouver, I do not have a community that I belong to anymore. I have been away for too long, people have forgotten about me. I am not sad about this, I am just not on their minds so they do not call. I honestly for the first time think that I could live in Seattle. I have really good friends here, more than at home. Which is crazy to think of, especially considering I spend way more time in Vancouver. I am interested to so what happens next, what does life have in store for me.

i'm alone because i love you.

Well, it has happened. I do not really want to go home. I miss my family and friends, but my city is so lame. This place is so full of life, every where you turn there are senseless acts of beauty. Vancouver has a long way to go if it is to ever catch up and honestly, I doubt it could. I thought I would be able to escape, a lot of people come here for visit and just don't leave. I am jealous of them and their ability to just move and change their lives so freely. In fact two people who arrived in NOLA around the same time as us, are doing just that, moving here.

I am supposedly going to school in January. It is going to be really hard for me to go from this city, where you can so freely escape the system to an institution that is build by the system.

We will see what happens, next stop Layfatte then back to Seattle for a couple days.

i've found my marbles!

So like a little child on Christmas morning, I woke up at 7:15am on my birthday. Honestly I couldn't have asked for a better day, the whole thing ended up being a rambling adventure, the kind of thing I love best. I love Meghan (the girl I am traveling with) but she is very organized. There is no getting lost, which is mostly how I enjoy to see places.

So, I must say, that there is a tradition in NOLA for birthdays. On your birthday what you do is pin a dollar to your shirt to let everyone know that it is your birthday. Then first of all everyone knows that it is your birthday so random strangers all over town are wishing you a happy birthday. In addition to that, everyone pins money to your shirt, as a sort of gift. I have asked people where the tradition comes from, but no ones seems to know. The best guess I got was, in the poor neighbourhoods, instead of giving people presents, because people could not afford them, people give money instead. Because here in America they have one dollar bills, people could afford to give people money for their birthday.

So in totally throughout the day I earned $13, I have heard of people making upwards of $75 on their birthday. It was funny because Meghan and I went out for breakfast and the waitress was the first person to notice my dollar. She looks and me and says, 'Happy Birthday, I am gonna go get you a dollar!' Mostly I was just surprised, I thanked her and then continued eating my food. I got more used to it as the day went on. I got shouts from the streets of Happy Birthday, when I was biking through town. So instead of being home, and being surrounded by friends and family, I was surrounded by strangers but they made me feel just as welcome.

So the plan for my birthday was to go Second Lining. I am not going to explain what Second Lining is, so if you want to know you can google it, but it is a tradition that is at the heart and soul of New Orleans. So we hopped on our bikes and biked across town in search of this second line. We followed the route the line was supposed to take and we could not find it. There was no evidence that a second line had even passed through any of the areas. On our adventure we found two other Louisiana Residents looking for the line also. So we teamed up and searched, looking all over town, with iphones an maps. We eventually ended up at the second location that the second line was supposed to stop at, and there was no one there and no evidence of a second line. So with our trusty new, we biked back to town to find other things to do.

Along the way back to the French Quarter, the football game let out and there Meghan and I were with these two new friends. biking through stand still traffic with the crowds from the stadium. We ended up stopping at this bar, where our new friends knew the owner and they bought us shots! We hung out there for a while and then moved on to the French Quarter to dance to my favourite band down here, the Palmetto Bug Stompers.

So for a little segway here, everyone in this town knows what Lindy Hop is and wants to learn it!! Isn't that rad! I don't get strange stares from people when they ask about the type of dancing I do. Instead I get excited faces and questions about where they can learn. This is exactly what happened with my new friends. They went to a beginner lesson and Meghan and I ate some food while we waited for the band to begin.

Another AMAZING part to my day, I got a birthday jam to the Bug Stompers!!! In NOLA!!! How amazing is that?! I have to say that it is one of the highlights to my dance career. Although, Herrang and my dance with Bill Nye the Science Guy are higher on the list. :)

During the band set Meghan and I went down to get Mojitos at Three Muses down the street. We have quickly determined during our time here in NOLA that the best cocktails in town are at Three Muses and their Mojito is out of this world. We order our drinks and our new friend John, from the second line, invites us to come and see the mardi gras Indians practice. So this is another traditional New Orleans tradition, and not many people get to see it. So we got our drinks to go (yes you can do that here) and made our way to another bar. :)

So what are the Mardi Grais Indians, well that is a good question. There were originally tribes in NOLA in the 1900s and those tribes would get together at specific times in the year, have these challenges and then fight. The killing part is no longer happening what is has turned into now, is this amazing display of music and dance. So in this bar, Hi Ho, we watched the Indians practice for Mardi Garis. A group of men stood in a circle one was drumming the others were on tambourines. There was a caller and there was a chant going on repeatedly, the caller with rap in between the chants. Then someone would challenge someone in the circle and they had a rap off that turned into a dance off that turned into these four tough black guys hugging and the whole thing ending.

It is a hard thing to explain, but the music was phenomenal, and it was a really great once in a life time experience.

That was mostly my birthday, none of it planed all of it spontaneous. Oh, I also got a Shirley temple bought for me when we went for food after dancing, because we returned to Frenchman to listen to jazz after the Indians practices.

and when I see you, I really see you upside down.

I just got a message from my Amoeba friend Sherry. Sherry is lovely, she is one of my favorite people ever, her Hayley and I have an Amoeba that we have formed. The reason we are an amoeba is because when we are together we move and stretch and morph like am Amoeba does, but we are connected through our hearts. It is like there is an invisible force that connects us, unlike other people. Anyways, I like it, and her message reminded me of our Amoeba. I love traveling and I Love NOLA, but I really love my friends. Why do we leave a place if, that place holds the things that we really love? There is some invisible force that propels us forward to change and grow. The people that we love are propelled by that force also, so they will not stagnate in this one place and time where in which our friendship existed. I am happy here but I think I will be happy when I am home. I miss my Amoeba, even though 1/3 of it is in Vancouver, the other 1/3 is in Boston and the other 1/3 in Louisiana. We are all still connected.

I have switched the location of my residence and am staying with alternate friends at the Old Prohibition Dance Hall. I am staying in the very building where Prohibition started, isn't that amazing. I fell like if I were to put roots in the building here, its stores and knowledge will come to me in some form. :)

I know that I am being esoteric and vatta right now, but I haven't had a good opportunity to spill my heart since I have been in NOLA. I tried on a costume today, it was a white slip with a blood stain over the heart. The 'original' wearer of this dress was stabbed in the heart. Maybe the metaphor, has carried over to this post.

I am going to be in Seattle for Halloween. I am excited about it, I love Seattle, I feel like I have good friends there that I love and love me back. One of them is even going to bake me a cake. For my birthday, which is tomorrow by the way.

I also want to shout out to people in my life that I love dearly, you know who you are. Love you.

I know we'll meet again some sunny day.

I have been so welcomed into the community of dancers here, we have been hosted by wonderful people who have become our friends and tour guides. We just switched homes and are now staying with an eccentric millionaire who owns the largest property in the Quarter. WTF! Living here is a dream, we wake up and go swimming in the pool, and when we decided to we make our way down to Royal to catch some free outdoor live music. Did you know all the bands here play for tips, they do not get paid by the bars, some times they get a cut of the drinks profit. There is a rule that you must by one drink per set while here, because all the dancing is in bars. So because I have been dancing and listening the best live music of your life every night, I have also been drinking a lot. Which is fun, but not sustainable. I just wonder how it is possible that Meghan and I have had such good luck meeting people and finding places to stay.

Today we are going shopping so we can look like the locals. I can see why every dancer who moves here wants to move here. It is just so wonderful. You never have to listen to a DJ ever again in your life. Every single person wants to talk to you, not just the dancers, this city is just so full of life. When I first arrived I thought that NOLA is kind of like Sodom and Gomorrah, which I still kind of think is true, but it is a lot of fun here. Is that the wrong response? :)

I feel like if I stayed here for a longer period of time, I would totally fit into the dance scene here. Although I am not sure what I would do during the day, but my nights would be full. Maybe I would teach yoga all day. Which doesn't work because you teach yoga at night, not during the day. Oh, well, I guess I shall leave and go back home to Vancouver when my flight says I should.