Meals at home this week:

• Sunday I made Alton Brown's baked mac and cheese from Good Eats. Probably the first time I ever actually watched an episode of a cooking show and then made the recipe afterward. It passed the grandma test, so I guess it's good. Seems to me like I could have used a bit more cheese, but eh. I'd recommend the recipe, in any case.
  
• Made black bean and rice tacos for the family tonight. Mom and brother refused to eat beans and thus rejected the whole meal, eating instead some tuna noodle leftovers, an apple, and half a frozen pizza. Dad and Grandma refused to eat salsa (I think my dad dislikes the Chi-Chis brand my mom bought most recently. Tastes normal to me.) and instead chopped up a fresh tomato. So I got maybe a 45% approval rating on this meal, much higher than usual.
  
• Mardi Gras in Central PA = Faschnaut Day! Bought a dozen of these potato donuts for the fam at Giant today in between errands. So good. (Of course, I'd rather be wasted in New Orleans on Decatur Street right now shoving beignets in down my throat, but you know.)
  

My grandma actually vomited from eating one of the muffins. That is how bad they were. wow. (probably not my fault. she's old. right?)

Updates on my steroid-life:
After doing yoga On Demand successfully, I thought I'd check out this Yogamazing podcast because they have a "Yoga for IBS" routine. Holy god was it boring. Plus I'm actually sore from doing it yesterday, (tapering down from these pills makes my muscles ache additionally) so I stopped half way through the podcast. I guess I'll stick with the chick onDemand.

I took my Grandma for a haircut today and we went to The Colony House in Mechanicsburg for lunch. We actually wanted breakfast, but they don't serve it after eleven. Big disappointment for me and Grandma, let me tell you. She had her heart set on some pancakes, and had to settle for French Onion soup ("So salty!") and a BLT ("very good.") I went out on a limb and got a broiled crab cake sandwich, and it actually agreed with me about as well as my usual rice-and-potatoes fare. My stomach baffles me. Anyway, the Colony house is about as mediocre as diner food gets, but since this was my second time out the house in two weeks probably, it was pretty exciting for me. I am going to get even more adventurous tomorrow and go see Coraline with Aunt Pat. Hoo boy.

after a full week of laying around my parents house with bad vibes being sent back and forth between me and my mom, my colitis symptoms got worse and my nurse now sees fit to put me on steroids. she was going to try a different drug but i have been running a fever so she's playing it "safe" i guess. last time i was on these was i guess my freshman year in college. although maybe it was more recently. they make me manic and starving and chubby and i get really depressed once i taper off. it'll make this a fun february. after as long as i stupidly tried to wait out these colitis symptoms, though, it's nice to begin to see an end in sight.

today's my dad's birthday. he's been napping since he came home from work.

my grandma hates her oxygen. she'll only wear it for a few hours at night. she talks about how's she's going to die soon on a daily basis.

i can't wait to be healthy so i care about life again and get a job. all i've done all week is watch the office on netflix and every show on the food network.
(i'll be able to eat food again soon. yayyyy!)

some non-important thoughts from the last two months of too much free time:

1. i've been way too up on the news from listening to too much npr. but i didn't hear about this one until last night: are you guys aware that john murtha offered to have all the detainees shipped to johnstown? too funny.

2. i read a book of plays by henrik ibsen, a playwright from turn of the century norway this week. he was a big influence on eugene o'neill, the american playwright i did my senior seminar in literature in and had to write like 10 papers about, all of which I wrote about gender, and how the women in his plays were weak and had no agency. so then this week i read ibsen's play "a doll's house" which was basically the answer to all my women's studies complaints. the main character is this woman who, at the end of the play, shockingly, just decides she's never been able to do anything for herself and leaves her husband and her kids to go have her own life. this play was written in 1876. it blew my mind. think of the papers i could have written in school if i had read this then.

3. i have been eating meat lately. on occasion. my ibs-brought-on nutrition-starved cravings have won over my belief that my tiny personal actions have any political impact. i had an amazing crab cake sandwich last night at this new bar called the new amsterdam down the street. my reuniting with wings a few weeks ago, however, left something to be desired. i'm sure this decision will make my parents happy, and probably will make living with them a little easier.

unemployment routine: oatmeal daily (although i was ambitious and have food today, so i made home fries. changing things up is what keeps me waking up. well, that and the cold.)

about once a week i hang out with my americorps friends. so two days ago i built a picnic table in braddock with lisa. she moved here from florida this year to do an americorps program there. for you who don't know, braddock is a former steel town about 8 miles outside pittsburgh that lost 90% of its population in the last 50 years. recently this infamous mayor moved in there and took over and started trying to make it an "arty" community. it's still mostly empty though. lisa's position is kinda this strange amorphous job where she's supposed to be mentoring former foster children, but really she's mostly renovating a house so far. anyway, they have a big MLK day event going on so she had to make these picnic tables to get ready for it and i went down there and helped. its kinda gratifying to know i can do something hands-on like that with just one or two other girls.

as a consequence of doing that in an unheated old church, i caught a cold or something. i rallied and went out last night anyway to brillobox and stood around bobbing my head and watching my friends dance with a lack of energy and thinking about every time ive screamed at other people for not being in the mood to dance. i tried to chat up a graduate philosophy student and drank an overpriced raspberry brown ale. oh, brillobox.

the library in my neighborhood is closed today. boo.

unemployment still sucks. i went to a waste of time job fair at highmark yesterday. maybe that'll pan out.
going to call some research studies today. i need money to feed my ridiculous appetite i've somehow cultivated lately. (i'm trying to put on weight to hibernate.)

philip pullman's his dark materials books (the golden compass, the subtle knife, and the amber spyglass) are all downright amazing books. I read them all this week and my roommates think I am silly for always being in the same position on the couch. these books blew my mind though. i wish I would have read them as a kid when they were first coming out. i would have lost my religion and believed in magic. (oh wait, i think that already happened in middle school.) anyway though. they blew twilight series out of the water for my favorite books i'm obsessed with lately.

i don't have much to say other than that. watched about 11 hours of football this weekend. (steelers!) i watched part of the eagles game in a bar by myself and talked to a respectable drunk man a few years younger than my parents. i felt alone and like a tourist in my city. he talked about pittsburgh when he was a kid and i felt very much homesick and like i don't belong here. he bought me a yuengling and told me i was alright.

being unemployed makes me want to document every little thing i do. which makes no sense, as it's much more interesting if i document my life when it's actually exciting, but oh well.

new year's eve was a bit lackluster for me because i tried not getting drunk. i went to a party at my friend ian's, then popped out to a bar, then came back. it was good to see people and dance a bit. since then i've been catching up with various people and trying to make myself get used to my new room/house. i tried to make things brightly colored with red sheets, blue curtains, and green and yellow clearance throw rugs.

and i've been trying to make my stomach stop hating me by eating mostly just soluble fibers, no dairy, no raw stuff. of course, i've been cheating almost daily, because i have no willpower, but hopefully now that i have some food at the house, i can cut that out. extra time means time to cook: i made orzo and mushrooms today and mashed sweet potatoes. and i've rediscovered the best fake-meat food ever made: gardenburger chicken patties. anyway though, no real improvements yet, but cramping is significantly less, so i'm hopeful.

boredom sure to strike soon. watched milk and the kite runner this week. read dodsworth, a depressing novel from the twenties about an unhappy married couple wandering europe.

i think my mother is worried about me. she keeps calling to check in on me.

back in pgh, again, 2009.

being at my parents' was nice. my mom thinks i hate it there and "everything bothers me". what she doesn't know is that i secretly love being there, and knowing there are bodies around me and hearing voices in the morning, and being able to pop over to watch football with pap or soap operas with grandma, and nagging everyone for eating unhealthily. and secretly, i dont hate the middle much anymore, and i could probably live there.

but really, really, i love my new place here, and having a place here, and wanting to buy picture frames and new rugs, and going out with my million fractured groups of friends, and abusing my stomach. (i am going to get better. i'm going to do it.) and if the temp agency would call me back soon and i'd start making bank, things would be even better.

vague resolutions: i should probably volunteer. get my bike out here. exercise on warmer days. cook more. do all the things i'm too set in patterns to do. travel around. be nicer to my mom. all kinds of stuff.

I've been thinking, in these unemployed lazy days, that I'm kinda silly for not keeping up my blog where for at least the first month of americorps, I wrote occasionally about food that I ate and books I read and places I went. Instead I wandered back here to livejournal and wrote things all year like, "wahhh I hate michigan, I don't like boys." So I think I'm going to start writing there again, because when I write there it feels more polished, and I can reflect on things I've seen/read/cooked. Even if no one reads it, it's better to reflect. Right, right.

Today was highly productive - I looked at a house and I'm going to definitely move there. It's in Lawrenceville, and although I found it on craigslist, I know the people that live there. It's a comfy place. So I'm way psyched about that.

And I had an interview at a legal staffing firm this morning that went well. She said she'd be able to get me something in January and was full of compliments about, blah, you know, my typing speed and proofreading skills. Anyway it boosted my confidence about my interview tomorrow, which is for a non-profit and would be pretty sweet.

So things are happier today, yay.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
uh. haha.
went to colorado, kansas, texas, louisiana, michigan, wisconsin, minnesota, south dakota, wyoming, utah, arizona and mississippi.
opened up (though i've probably closed up quite a bit again.)
and probably a lot of other things.
(sneaking into a hotel pool. taking questionable, non-prescribed medication. kissing people whose names i will never know. sleeping in parks.)

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
uh, although I didn't remember this until I read this post from last year, I guess with Miranda I declared it hot stuff! 2008. which, yeah, it was. and i said I'd get over insecurities. which I think i did pretty well, at some times better than others. AmeriCorps helped a lot.

oh I always make resolutions. quit smoking and go vegan. easy. (hah.) get a retirement plan.
I guess next year is 2009-MYSTERY. it's the truth.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
not this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
no

5. What countries did you visit?
i saw the beautiful united states of america.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
(hah last year I said that sometime in 2008 i would come up with a plan for the rest of my life. yeah right.) I would like to have at least minimum wage in 2009. i lacked that this year. hahah. i'm done thinking i'll ever have a plan for life.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
oh gosh. DATE? i don't remember dates. but I'll remember

seeing the rockies for the first time and being blown away,
that hike i took outside denver at the end of february where we climbed a big rock, and had snowball fights, and ran through the trails sweating,

bourbon street, and frenchmen street, and loving james james ben and chelsea like they were my brothers and sisters, and being silly in kenner, and debauchery all the time. and being filthy in attics, and jumping in the la quinta pool to get clean, and laying out in our bikinis by the laundry, and going to see the zydepunks, and the brass bands at the french quarter festival, and dancing dancing dancing, and staring at the mississippi as the boats go by, and eating beignets. new orleans is so burned into me that the taste of whiskey and abita and bloody marys all still give me a jolt of memory and happiness of there.

and missing chel, and pikes peak,
and michigan, being utterly miserable, but sometimes smiling, pulling down trees with ben, and eating lots of guacamole while watching the penguins lose, and detroit strangeness. and mountain biking for the first time. and swimming in the lake by myself, freezing cold always.

and silly mount rushmore and the beautiful grand canyon.

and san diego and blissing out at the beach.

and baton rouge calmness, iced mochas and watching movies with amy, and raising cane's and painting habitat houses. running around the beautiful lake, probably in the best shape of my life. and our new orleans benders then, too. (hotel oliver. damn.)

and texas then, but mostly just those few days in camp victor with lisa and megan and i happy all together, and then austin, laying on the bed with tessa for hours, eating pizza and chips and coke zero, and giggling about everything. and days and nights out in an indie town again. stubbs and the twisted nickel and kerbey lane. and that one night with ben and baby by the pool, talking til 4 am like old days.

everything is old days now.
and kountz, texas and joe, and lavern's tavern, and denver (and pat's and mimosas) again finally and that last night at 4g's. who could forget that.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
hah. staying alive. and not ever getting seriously hurt beyond being covered in bruises for 8 months straight.

9. What was your biggest failure?
oh. getting miserable i guess. i think back on michigan as time spent sadly. it was so hard though. stay posi, it's the only secret to life. who knew.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
oh, i was sick i guess. three times this year. never too bad.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
my hat in new orleans?

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
haha um. everyone's. ameri-celebration is for everyone.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
i try not to point fingers on the internet.

14. Where did most of your money go?
bars (hey this answer hasnt changed from last year, what do you know.)

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
hah. new orleans. dancing.
going to san diego.
and coming home.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
my dick - mickey avalon.
time to pretend - mgmt
your sex is on fire - kings of leon.
and honestly, like 400000 other songs.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?: i have no idea. decembers are hard every year. i would say happier i guess. i feel hopeful now, sorta. worried, but hopeful.
ii. thinner or fatter? probably fatter, but same pants.
iii. richer or poorer? POORER.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish I'd. I don't know. I guess stayed positive. longer. been more accepting.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
losing my wallet.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
in the middle probably.

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
love is for suckas.

23. How many one-night stands?
haha. how many times did we argue this year about what a one-night stand is? i had none.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
weeds and the wire

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
nah

26. What was the best book you read?
not the twilight series, for damn sure. stupid addicting books.
the omnivoire's dilemma is a book absolutely everyone should read.
also awesome were all the king's men, the kite runner, and the heart is a lonely hunter.


27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
mgmt? not a lot of big discoveries, i guess, just a lot of great new albums out.

28. What did you want and get?
travel. experience. friends.

29. What did you want and not get?
a career.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
new bond movie was awesome. i feel like i didn't see a ton of movies i liked this year though.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
24 - chinese buffet with my weirdo team, all dressed up like freaks, and then frenchmen on a wednesday with a bubble wand. it was beautiful.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
more money? hahahah

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
ameri-crusty. hair growing out from a bad cut and changing colors monthly.

34. What kept you sane?
james, for a while, and amy, and running, and whiskey, actually, and lisa and megan.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
OBAMA

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
OBAMA

37. Who did you miss?
EVERYONE

38. Who was the best new person you met?
EVERYONE. i met so many amazing people this year.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
if you're peeing in a lake, make sure you're phone's not in your pocket.
also: if you walk around in flip-flops in the south, fire ants will eat you.

(most of this in reply to barbra's comment)

stomach is feeling a lot better, though it still protests if put much in my mouth more complex than noodles, crackers, broth or gatorade. taking it easy through the weekend is more of a challenge, but i'm going to try to stay strong.

twilight.
christ.
this series took over my life this week. and let me tell you,
the fourth book BLOWS. it has made me furious. but i can't stop reading. I CAN'T STOP. the fact i started reading these while unemployed is terrible, because i can so easy blow off everything in my life except these dumb black books.

damn though does this last one suck.


i would say, i recommend these books, because they're like crack, and the second book at least is legitimately good. they're really addicting reads. but sometimes in the first book the writing is SO bad, and the rest have these plots that are all SO frustrating. hahaha. i know this isn't a glowing recommendation, bubba.


(and yea, i saw about 1.5 episodes of true blood but was a little lost because i didn't start at the beginning. i... like it, i wasn't nuts about it though, but i'm sure i'd get addicted if i rented them and watched it straight through. do you guys like it?)

1. living in my parents house, even for a week, is So hard.
2. it smells like mothballs in this coffeeshop right now.
3. i hate the vague uneasiness of unemployment.
4. i LOVE watching the wire with my dad.
5. the steelers made me smile yesterday.
6. i am feeling so socially anxious here.
7. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

8. pittsburgh yay.
9. someone give me a job.

stream of consciousness pittsburgh vs. the middle pros vs. cons list that runs through my mind every time i come home:

family good, family bad. driving good, driving bad. i love pittsburgh. i hate it here. but it feels so familiar. and i can get everywhere. i can sleep on my couch for free and my daddy makes me dinner. but every night it's some kind of noodle with some kind of cheese on it. i love my daddy. my mom drives me nuts. i love my mom. i'm bored. i miss pittsburgh. guilt guilt guilt.

my mom says I NEED A GOOD JOB WITH BENEFITS.
and you know, she's always right, so.
maybe i should just listen to her, and sleep on the couch a while, and get a "good job" and an apartment by myself downtown somewhere, and see my family a lot. and take weekend trips to pittsburgh.
and have health benefits and a car quickly and not worry my mom.
and be bored to tears on a regular basis.
sigh.

(why is this the penultimate debate of the last 3 years of my life?)

i have way more clothes left in my old bedroom than i thought i did. i am suddenly thrust back into materialism. with nowhere to put it all.

adjusting to life is difficult. i almost miss ...
no not really. haha.
i just have to keep reminding myself how it was in my program all year so i appreciate little things. like couches. and ovens. and beer. and unemployment. hahaha

headache, but i feel the need to document.

i LOVE pittsburgh. in americorps i won the "biggest hometown rep" superlative award, making some indignant since this is not, in fact, my hometown. i don't care. i LOVE pittsburgh. my friends are amazing - alyss is letting me live on her couch til i find a home, everyone spent all day listening to seventy thousand stories about my difficulty adjusting, and how, and why...
and seriously, it feels like i'm stoned all day, the way my brain is working. chris will say something, some comment on a commercial during the game we're watching, and i'll hear it and the same time thing, the tone of his voice there, the way he said that, nobody's talked like that around me in the last ten months. or i'll just let my mind trail off for a second and let it rest on.... what. where does your mind go when it's done with its processes? back to reset. what is that for me? i have no job. i have no house. i don't know what to revert to. i thought i was all kerouacky couch surfer crazy kid and didn't need these paradigms, but here i am.

i swear 'm not stoned.

today i was the ultimate pittsburgh consumer, readjusting, making my rounds: zenith breakfast, veganning out, running into MICHAEL AND ERIC (i love pittsburgh. this all proves to me i wasnt exaggerating all these months. this is what pittsburgh is. i went to breakfast with a friend of a friend i'd never met before and then saw her 4 hours later out of sheer coincidence walking liberty. I LOVE PITTSBURGH.)... and then crazy mocha, and then chris's for a while, and then brillo for a beer and some din din. and a celebration ale.

i've been in celebration mode for a month. it must end.

none of this feels significant for here.

good things came out of communal living, but i love being back here.
i feel like i'm faking it, like this isnt really my life.
am i really whitewashing it already? am i saying what a good year it was?
wasn't it a good year?
i told rob i think better of america now.
what's america?

what am i doing?

maybe i should join the red cross.

ive recently started worrying about my family, and the future.

i think my perpetual headaches from last week have returned.

where's my team leaders? who tells me what to do now?

counting days, counting days....

i'm in beaumont. my team left austin for galveston about a week ago. there wasn't really enough work at the joint field office for us and the guys all hated doing office work. i was pretty bummed because i was actually doing some really cool work for special needs populations and was loving that city and living with the other team we were with. but. so it goes.

in galveston we were working with the red cross on emergency response vehicles, driving around like ice cream trucks handing out beef stew and mandarin orange cups. the whole island looked trashed, and beyond that it looked like it'd been trashed in some places even before the storm. the seawall by the gulf has huge hotels and bars, and the rest of the island had tiny houses and a low-income population. pretty depressing stuff, but the island was cute. we had some good times on the beach. (i had some pukey times on the beach.)

a day or two after getting there, we got word that fema wanted us to move to beaumont to work in a warehouse. my team (minus me) revolted, emailing the higher ups and eventually having a meeting with some higher up. i could care less at this point. i lost faith in this program and its effectiveness so many months ago. i am just looking to the end.

and working in the warehouse here is not so bad, despite how the rest of my team feels about it. we consolidate pallets and load them on trailers. i feel like if i was in charge, i'd whip that place into shape. i think every person working in the warehouse thinks that too, though. red cross is staffed by i guess 75% retired people who are crotchety and mean. i totally want to be one of them when i'm oldkate.

oh also, we've been living in these weird fema camps on tarmacs and in arena parking lots where they have mess halls and laundry service and we sleep on cots in tents. they get old. and dull.

but the best thing about beaumont is that lisa and fernando live here! it was so bizarre and amazing to see them and stay at their house and be spoiled by them. i took a day off and we got shitfaced and i observed the phenomenon that is texas kareoke - so extreme, let me tell you.

can't wait to go back to denver, and then go back to pittsburgh! i have prospects, i have possible homes, i am so psyched.

still in austin. on sunday, we all slept in after being up til 4 am. while on disaster, my team (fire 7) has been travelling with another team, fire 1, who for some reason fate or b. lane (headmistress of denver campus) has always placed somewhere around my team. i slept in fire 1's room, filled with drama and strewn clothing and appliances stolen from the hallway.

my team and i went to SoCo for the day, this boutiquey district on the other side of the river. we ate lunch at an amazingly cheap sushi joint and argued for a half hour about whether it was a national chain or not (this all started by my staunch refusal to eat at a pizza hut while in austin texas. silly me.) it was while wandering around the vintage and costume shops that my sickness hit. i guess i've abused my body to the limit and it finally caved to the germs surrounding and assaulting it for the last two weeks.

i went out that night anyway, chugging screwdrivers at the only post-city limits show not sold out this weekend: the black keys at stubb's, an awesome restaurant/bar/venue with a huge outdoor stage and cheap beer. it was awesome to catch this show - when we saw them play with my morning jacket at red rocks last month we really only heard them play 5 songs or so.

i went to work yesterday, snotty as i was, and we actually had some work to do after 3 hours of security bs: calling every landlord in texas, asking for vacancies and taking details to make up a database for evacuees. every time i tell someone on a phone with my probably-fifteen-year-old-sounding-voice that i am calling from fema, they say, "you're with WHO?"

but i took off today to lay around in the hotel and read the chuck klosterman book i'm working through and listen to the new tv on the radio on repeat. the next americorps class is being delayed 4 months due to our failing economy, so changes might be coming to my team, returning members, returning bitterness. oh well. our really cool new leader that we have for this last month will probably stay with us, which is probably the most important thing.

my favorite month starts tomorrow and i'm going to do my damndest to make it happy, despite drama and regulations and boondoggles and red tape and lack of fall in 90 degree weather. i'm with a lot of friends i've made in an awesome city for at least another few days. and the steelers actually won yesterday! and my fantasy team won for the week! good signs of things to come!

i love austin.
we went to a city limits after party last night sponsored by some vodka company and full of beautiful people. we ate at two veggie friendly cheapish adorable restaurants yesterday. i'm going to see the black keys tomorrow.

it all makes me miss my friends.

in other news, fema red tape blows.

i am at an air force base in houston, getting more lessons in hurry up and wait. we can watch kids while their parents wait in line for three hours with fema, or we can hand out meals ready to eat to people (i am becoming an expert in every possible meal. beef stew gets the best reviews. there are 5 veggie options. bbq veggie pattie and spicy penne pasta taste suspiciously similar.)

i'm addicted to weeds, i love hanging out with lisa, i'm completely coated in mosquito bites (hurricane ike made some kind of mosquito epidemic) and i've been in a better mood today than i've been in in weeks.

maybe galveston soon?

after two days, everyone in the shelter knows each other. i spend my days trying to force myself to socialize with 4 year olds who know no english, special needs adults who call me mary-kate olsen. we serve diarrhea-inducing cafeteria food to them and wander around cleaning floors for the fifteenth time. everyone itches for more to do and avoids what there is to do.

we've been staying in a hotel stuffed with evacs with fema vouchers. they barbecue in their rooms and the hallways smell of smoke. last night we went to an overpriced rooftop daqueri bar and took pictures of the dallas skyline.

tomorrow, somewhere else. the next day, somewhere else. 60 some days to go.

oh, attn: erin m., et al.: listen to (we are) performance. they are reminiscent of stellastar.

i'm in dallas. i think. maybe i'm in grand prairie, whereever that is. i am sitting around in a shelter in a salvation army trucking hat. my team is very unnecessary here, so i'm reading magazines and looking at pictures of ike destruction farther south. we helped serve lunch for a while but now there's little to do except "mingle".

earlier this week we were originally sent to live at the adorable camp victor in ocean springs, miss. and work with the red cross. we were mostly unnecessary there too, but i made some muscles moving meals-ready-to-eat from truck to truck to shelter which ended up housing five people. ocean beach is an "artsy fartsy" town that never got hit very bad by katrina and thusly has a cute indie bar and a mellow mushroom restaurant we hung out in for a few days. i enjoy being on disaster more than the rest of my team because i like hanging out with other teams and. i dunno. i don't feel like being upset these days. i like the change up.

we were in baton rouge for one night and no one knew we were coming. we ate at chelsea's cafe, a bar/venue i always wanted to go to when i was down there last month and never got a chance.

everyone is extremely frustrated with the incompetancy and miscommunication and buraucracy and everything we've gone through. there is so little work to do and we're all just in the way everywhere we go. everyone's so sick of the hurry up and wait and wishes we could be of real help somewhere but it's just not happening. i feel like we've been on vacation all week. we're staying in a hotel tonight. (last night we slept on a gym floor after watching the steelers game at a dive down the street.)

i guess i'll be on disaster for another week or so. hopefully at some point i'll be of use to someone somewhere.