hyenahell

okay. another quickie. this might be my last one for a while.

this coming Wednesday, i'm going back to New Orleans for the first time since i evacuated August 28th. i'll be there for about a week. i don't think i am going to bring my laptop with me, and i don't know what kind of internet access i'll have once i get there. so if i'm M.I.A. for a bit, that's the reason. but i'll be back here in Greenville by November 16th.

i've been having nightmares about going back. i've had nightmares since the hurricane, of course. in abundance and with frequency. but these recent nightmares are specifically about returning. i don't really want to get into it much.

i think i've been good about putting the impending return in the back of my mind and not dreading or fretting it too much. i suspect it's dissociation. i've been good at that lately, too. i've remained stoic and numb for the greater part of my exile.

something unexpected happened, though. that made me feel a bit. brought me back to life a little, i suppose. i was jolted back into thinking of New Orleans, and everything that happened, and everything that was lost, and my upcoming return, etc.

i went to Chapel Hill for the Bill Fick/Cannonball Press print-o-rama thing. i was on the UNC campus at their print shop, and took a break for some coffee. i went to a Starbuck's right off campus. normally i would have gone to a locally owned shop, and as it was there was one right down the street. but i went to Starbuck's. i don't know why. i never go there. i walked in and stood in line, and noticed a guy in front of me that looked a lot like one of my best friends from New Orleans. now, i've been seeing people where they don't belong for years, and it's gotten worse since i evacuated New Orleans. i figured i was just seeing ghosts, as usual.

but i kept looking, and finally i said his name. he turned around and holy fucking christ. it was my friend. randomly. i had no idea here he was, how to contact him, if he'd made it out, etc. but there we were. what seemed like a million miles and a million years from home. and we'd found each other.

i won't really go into details. there was story sharing, cross-checking lists of people we both knew, updating each other on what had happened to everyone, and what news we'd heard from people who'd been back, and other things that have become almost formulaic every time we reunite with someone from New Orleans. but i was overjoyed, awe-stricken, and a bit wierded out to see him.

so that was that. it swamped my brain and i couldn't really think about much else the entire day, and the next one.

anyway. this entry's gotten a bit ramble-ish. i'll sign off for now. hopefully i'll get to update once more before i leave. we'll see.

much love to everyone.
-Hyena.