Thursday, October 26, 2006

New Orleans' Insomnia

The New Orleans sleeping phenomenon is this:

You live in a constant state of exhaustion, and yet - can't sleep because your mind is craving time to process your day and think about things other than work.

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I am so completely desensitized to my crazy lifestyle. Today, I worked a 14 hour day, and came back to my apartment at about 10:00pm. As soon as I sat down on my bed, my phone starts ringing and we hear somebody banging on the door. Apparently, the house two doors down from us is on fire. We look out the window and see huge flames over the rooftop of our neighbor's house.

My first thought: Ok, what do I take with me in case our apartment burns down? So I grabbed my birth certificate, ID, and my iPOD. (And then quickly realized how unbalanced my priorities have become... Freaking Apple... you've won my heart.)

Kenda and I run outside, just in time to see the fire completely consume a humongous tree, and explode all the power lines next to the house. I shouldn't say this - but when the tree lit - for just a few seconds all the leaves were outlined in fire, and it was truly beautiful.

All the volunteers and all the neighbors are outside in their pajamas watching the firemen and talking. Nobody seems too upset. Honestly - I'm pretty sure that house was a crack den, so the neighborhood was probably glad to see it go.

Once the fire is relatively under control, and doesn't seem to be headed our way. We go back to the apartment, crawl in bed and start reading our books again. Ten minutes later, all the power in the apartments goes out, and that's our silent cue to close our books and go to bed.

I'm not sure in my old life, I could have fallen asleep with a smoldering house next door, and the power off because the electric lines exploded outside... New Orleans, man. So crazy.

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Speaking of... did you hear about this? Supposedly the worst murder to ever occur in the city.

1 comment:

Anthony said...

Hey Ames, if you're up for it, I'd like to talk with you this weekend. I'll try to catch you at a more reasonable hour this time around. - Choi