[Recovery Pen has been a column about New Orleans life, from the vantage point of a transplanted northerner with a soft heart and an eye for detail.]

When I was a kid, my mom tried to cheer me up at the end of a fun weekend or family vacation with this old saying: all good things must come to an end. It wasn't much comfort then, and it's not much comfort now. "But why?" I'd ask her. "Why do good things have to end?"

She didn't have an answer for me, and I don't have an answer for you. My fellow bloggers have already said their goodbyes, and now it's my turn. As you've heard, our blog has been cancelled, obviously not because of our writing quality, but because our parent company wants to go in other directions. Bloggingneworleans, and its short-lived predecessor bloggingohio, were to be the vanguard of location-specific sites across the AOL network. But when Bloggingla and bloggingbrooklyn never manifested themselves, well, it didn't come as much of a surprise when we heard they were pulling the plug on us.

Personally, I can say that I received the news with a mixture of sadness and relief. Unlike my fellow bloggers, who plan to set up camp in new spots in the blogosphere, I am looking forward to the old-fashioned pursuit of writing a novel. It's something that I couldn't balance with my full-time job, healthy social life, activist pursuits, and weekly blog, but now I can fit it in. And I'm so grateful for this site which has forced me to sit my butt down and write on a semi-regular basis. Having this practice will help my novelist pursuits immensely.

And yet, and yet... As we recently passed the two-year Katrina anniversary, it saddened me to realize that the city still needs a Recovery Pen, because we're still recovering. And maybe we always will be, the way alcoholics call themselves "recovering" for years after they put down the bottle.

[Recovery Pen started as a response to the post-Katrina wreckage: physical, emotional, and societal. Unfortunately, its author still finds plenty to write about, two years later.]

Let's face it: we're all sick of Katrina. Maybe the news media is excited to have a pre-made story as August 29 roars down upon us, but the rest of us would rather be rid of the whole damned mess. Still, it's impossible not to think about, as impossible to ignore as the elephant standing on your foot.

This week, my fellow bloggers will be posting Katrina remembrances and photos, and I will continue on with my NOLA Alphabet as a way to commemorate what I've learned from this great city, before and after the storm. Yet I wanted to dedicate today's column to Katrina's children, who've had to survive the powerlessness of this trauma with the added powerlessness of being a child Adults can decide whether or not to leave the city as a killer storm approaches. But what about the children without a choice, the ones whose parents or guardians didn't have the sense or the money to evacuate? What would it be like living through such a storm as a child? Or as an infant, so sensitive and completely unable to make sense of the experience, likened to having a freight train running over the house, for hours on end.

And then, what about the aftermath? What would it be like to wade through filthy flood water, which goes a lot higher on a small body? And having your home - the center of your tiny universe - swallowed by water, your few toys ruined? What would it be like to leave all your friends, and maybe even lose your very best friend, your pet? To watch your relatives drown while you wait for rescue?

[Recovery Pen is a column written by a NOLA local, born into this life as a Yankee.]

Ten years ago yesterday, Mom and I pulled into a Metairie motel parking lot, my Saturn coupe stuffed with the detrius of my adolescence: novels and notes, photos and purses. My brother and his girlfriend turned in behind us, with my couch hanging out of the family station wagon. As we'd creeped south from Chicago, each rest stop hotter than the one before, the truth kicked us in the guts: we'd gotten in too deep. We're Andersons, half Norweigan and half German, and had no business being south of the Mason-Dixon line in the middle of August.

And so my brother and his girl stayed in the hotel room for their entire stay. Too hot to even venture to the pool, they sat in front of the TV and ordered pizza. I didn't have that luxury, as I had two days to find an apartment of my own, my first apartment alone.

While everyone else gathered around the room's air conditioning unit, I started circling want ads. I'd come down in July to scope out the city and find a place, with help from some of my new compadres, MFA grad students at the University of New Orleans. One of them brought me on an errand out to Metairie; a group of us went drinking at the Dragon's Den: neither of these events got me an apartment. Still, I'd decided to try uptown, where some potential friends lived.

I don't know if it was luck, or God's Own Hand that landed me an apartment that first afternoon. Six hours after our arrival, I signed a lease for a place in the Irish Channel. Mom was comforted by the fact that the landladies, a young lesbian couple, lived in the back apartment. Her baby wouldn't be completely alone with these nice girls around. Of course, had we realized that the straight one would move to New York City and the other one would con me into buying a motorcycle with a bad title, we might have felt less satisfied with the arrangement.

But if we could see into the future, would anyone have moved here, back in the August of 2007?

[Recovery Pen is a blog devoted to the addiction that is New Orleans.]

It's the classic New Orleans experience: you greet the day with a throbbing head, a dry throat, and a stranger in your bed. You resolve to quit drinking, today, a resolution which lasts for the four hours until your next-door neighbor invites you over for beer bongs. Although the best cure for post-drinking angst is more drinking, sometimes a good laugh can help. As self-admitted attention addicts, the four men who comprise The Comedy Addiction Tour don't care if you're a drunk, as long as you show up and laugh.

But if you're committed to your alcoholism, you might want to skip this show, which allows all four "friends of Bill" to relate their addiction and recovery experiences with disarming honesty and hilarious detail. Billy Robinson, who grew up in the projects in Ohio, describes an early AA meeting when he confused a reference to "the highest authority" with the Housing Authority. Starting off the evening, Jesse Joyce spoke of his many injuries he suffered from drinking, and how he lied about them, such as blaming a broken ankle on a game of basketball. "But that doesn't work when you forget and lie to the guys who saw you drunk," he explained, saying that his friends who watched him puke on himself and then fall down three flights of stairs didn't buy the basketball story.

All of the men discussed their other addictions: food, sex, women, endorphins. Not only are all of them different manifestations of the same addictive drive, but they're all funny. In regards to his compulsive eating, Mark Lundholm asked the audience if anyone else ever ate food off their own shirt. "Off someone else's shirt?" he added. And although Kurtis Matthews confessed to being addicted to women, he made a point to interject at numerous times that he'd never gone to a hooker. "Although I probably should have," he said, alluding to a marriage gone wrong.

[Recovery Pen chronicles the baffling, beautiful life in the American outpost of New Orleans.]

I've done some strange things post-Katrina, but perhaps Friday night was the strangest: not only did I stay home to watch TV, but I flipped past Pulp Fiction and stand-up comics for C-SPAN. I'd never spent more than a nanosecond watching that channel before, as much as I've always felt that as a good American, I really should see what those clowns in Washington were up to. Maybe if they dressed more like clowns, instead of those drab suits, I'd have tuned in before.

But I digress. Friday night, they were airing the congressional hearing on formaldehyde in FEMA trailers, so I felt obliged to watch. I'd heard nothing about formaldehyde in the trailers, but I wasn't surprised to hear that they were full of poison. Sadly, I was less surprised to hear that even though the FEMA field workers responded with alarm, the FEMA lawyers in Washington played it cool. Cold, even. They advised the field workers not to do anything, because, and I quote, "once you get results that show something, our clock is running to do something about it."

Now that's the sort of laissez-faire attitude you might expect from a New Orleanian regarding a paternity test, but you like to think that the federal government might could step up when it learns that its overpriced trailers are poisoning people. Of course, Katrina has showed us all how much the government really cares about people in a desperate situation.

[Recovery Pen is an ongoing tale of a native Midwesterner living in the Big Easy.]

Hot town, summer in the city

Back of my neck gettin' dirty and gritty

-The Lovin' Spoonful, 1966

After living in New Orleans for many summers now, I've come to accept the heat, the humidity, and the bugs. Summer's intensity provides an excuse for so many indulgent behaviors: two-hour catnaps, daily doses of Brocato's ice cream, all-nighters at The Club, and weekends to the country. I'm a little embarrassed to say that for all my time down here, I haven't gotten to see much of the Deep South. When I do get away, I head for Gulf Coast beaches or the hipster island of Austin, Texas. Neither of these places, charming though they are, really give the traveller much sense of Deep South culture.

Last weekend, some neighbors invited me to go tubing, with a side trip up to McComb, Mississippi, for Sunday dinner at The Dinner Bell. Excited to try it, they told me about its charms: patrons share large tables with other diners and help themselves to plates of Southern country fare off a giant lazy Susan in the table's middle. Intriguing as this sounded, the practical side of me couldn't help but wonder if we really needed to drive an hour and a half just to eat out in the middle of nowhere. From New Orleans, you can get to a tubing spot within forty-five minutes; this place had better be good.

[Recovery Pen is a semi-weekly column which tries to provide a clever take on New Orleans life.]

So if you're not here to witness it firsthand, let me tell you that June is the month in which everything slows down. Way down. The college kids have scrambled back to their northern homelands, the musicians have gone on tour, anyone with a few extra bucks has made arrangements to get the hell out of Dodge. Restaurants and shops close. Of course, no one minds the heat. It's that humidity that makes us crazy to the point of homicide.

And the bugs.

And the "budget" summer tourists who don't tip.

And, of course, the likelihood of being drowned in a killer storm.

That said, I wish I could say that "Recovery Pen" is on hiatus due to Prince Charming whisking me off to lounge away the summer solstice in the Riviera. But no. Although life slows down for everyone else, my work has been heating up. I help run an alternate-certification program for teachers here in the NO, and anyone who works in education administration knows, summer is a busy time. Currently, I'm in charge of an event where first-year teachers' performance portfolios are assessed by experienced educators, so that these first-years can get their Louisiana certification in the fall.

True, this work probably isn't as important as gadding on about local characters in a public forum, but I gotta pay the bills. So don't despair, dear readers! Recovery Pen is in a brief dormancy, soon to emerge from its sweltering cocoon.

Upcoming topics: building a Bike Project bike, travelling circuses, hula-hoopers, high-school hijinks, and so much more.

[Recovery Pen chronicles the simple pleasures and gratuitous joys of living in New Orleans.]

With the foul breath of hurricane season prickling the backs of our necks, optimism is as elusive as dry land during a flood. Still, I am thrilled to report that this June 1st not only marks the official beginning of storm season, but also ushers in a major recovery benchmark: Fair Grinds Coffeehouse opening for business.

Even if you don't think you're familiar with Fair Grinds, you probably are: it's that place by the old Mid-City Whole Foods which has inspired both locals and tourists, old and young, hip and square, all to ask: "What the hell's going on over there? Are they open, or what?"

The Fair Grinds has earned its confusing reputation. Clearly coffee has been served at this establishment, as locals regularly gather around the benches out front and hold forth with the passion and loquacity that only caffeine inspires. The careful observer will also notice people carting laptops to and fro, as well as Friday night guitarists and Saturday morning AA members. Yet, when one tries to buy a cup, or god forbid, ask for some tea, she is rebuked.

But no more! Starting tomorrow, anyone with a few bucks can buy anything on the menu at the newly-renoved caffeine emporium. To celebrate this once-unimaginable event, I stopped by the other evening and chatted with owner Robert Thompson. I took notes while he painted the finishing touches on the outdoor trim, stopping numerous times to chat wiith the parade of friends and neighbors "just stopping by."

[Recovery Pen is about the small victories that take place in New Orleans.]

To celebrate the freakishly-nice weather this weekend, a friend and I biked down to the upper Ninth Ward Saturday afternoon. The Bywater Art Market has become one of those few reliable things that one could set a clock to: if it's the third Saturday of the month, there's going to be an art market. Because this market is so reliable, it's easy to take it for granted: why make a point to go today, when you can catch it next month? Or the month after that?

Located at the park on Piety Street, just past the Isle of Salvation voudou shop and Frady's Food Stop, the Bywater Art Market has established itself as one of the premier art markets in town. Granted, New Orleans only has a couple of art markets, but even if there were more, the Bywater Art Market would still be a destination for serious art lovers. This market focuses entirely on fine art, not craft art, and only allows artists to sell original works: no commercially-made prints or reproductions.

Unfortunately, it usually takes something like a hurricane to remind us how important it is to cherish such gems like a free fine-art market. Indeed, I wouldn't have gone on Saturday had my friend not invited me. She'd never been, and with such great weather, I was happy to join her on my bike. I hadn't planned to write about the market, but I brought my notebook just in case. And once I got my notebook out, lots of folks were ready to chat.

[Recovery Pen is a column about New Orleans festivals, and the other life events sprinkled in-between.]

At the risk of coming across like one of those weak sitcom episodes where they rerun clips under the guise of the characters reminiscing over old times, I've decided to join those who feel they must process Jazzfest by picking out the highlights. I know it's been a few days since Fest closed its gates, but the music is still playing in my head.

Read through my picks, and feel free to add your favorite moments in the "Comments" section at the bottom.

Best Crowd Singalong: Bonerama's version of the Beatles' "Helter Skelter." I belted out those lyrics at my loudest, and I still couldn't hear myself over the crowd. Something about having four trombones blasting in your face makes you want to scream.

Best Food Risk: The Alligator Pie. I got it in a combo with crabmeat-stuffed shrimp and fried green tomatoes, but the pie was so good it startled me. The gator tastes like ground beef, blended perfectly with just enough onion and tomato. It's rare to find such peppery stuffing in such perfect flakiness, at least when it comes to food.

Most Fun Quasi-Celebrity Encounter: I caught Times-Picayune reporter Gwen Filosa in the Media Tent on her day off, and let me tell you, that gal is a hoot! A little beered-up, Ms. Filosa had just returned from the Allen Toussaint show, where she got some pretty hot photos of the crowd as reflected in the tuba player's bell. When she saw my shot of Dwayne Dopsie, she asked me if I was a photographer. Of course I told her that I was.

[Recovery Pen tries to experience the best of New Orleans.]

Ass in the air, flash of silver panty, and she's back up, zooming forward, bulging thighs pushing skate against floor. God, they're sexy –suicide –those Roller Girls. Skirts flying. Bombs of cleavage. Pearls and fishnets and punk-rock makeup. Their sport is an intense blend of hockey and burlesque, at racing speed.

Best to sit in front, on the floor just outside the crash zone. Girls will tumble and slide right in your lap, which is why the prime seats are on the floor. Even from the back, you can see right up the girls' micro skirts, the way they skate bent over, focused on forward motion. So you might as well sit up front.

The bouts are at Mardi Gras World –where else?-so that giant heads and creatures of all sorts greet fans entering the ballroom skating track. As the Girls skate around the track, the pulsing lights of the dragon float and the dinosaur add to the hypnosis. Rock and roll plays, loud, techno and latin mixed in, music to make the heart beat faster. As if a heart needed encouraging, with these sexy ladies speeding circles. They are the woman everyone wants: tough, angry, cool. They speed into your heat on old-school skates, the kind with four wheels and laces.Warrior women, the Girls are decked out in full combat gear –elbow pads, knee pads, and helmets-because shoving and falling into a pile-up are just part of the fun.

[Recovery Pen is one woman's journey into the heart of south Louisiana.]

We missed the Reaux Shambo down at the Montegut gym. Melissa, our guide to this corner of Cajun country, said it wasn't a big deal -- only old people go to the dance anyways. We'd spent too much time at Spahr's Seafood in Des Allemands, eating fresh-fried softshell crabs and harrassing the bartender to put horseradish in his Bloody Marys. Spahr's is right off the highway, and so no surprise when we ran into Melissa's folks on their way back to Chauvin from New Orleans. Chuckie and Maxine seemed nice, like country folks are. He was sunburned; she wore a cross. Ms. Maxine slipped us a twenty for the bar tab on their way out.

We spent the night at Melissa's sister's in Montegut, getting our country on. Swimming in the bayou after dark, picking blackberries in the morning wind, eating Melissa's homemade biscuits with lots of butter and honey: things to make a girl reconsider her life in the city.

We'd come down for the Blessing of the Fleet in Chauvin, where shrimpers from around the bayou decorate their boats for the priest, who blesses their ships from his perch on the front boat (this year, he rode the Tiffani Claire, pictured above.) After they receive their blessing, the shrimpers join the procession sailing down Bayou Petite Caillou. Although we weren't shrimpers, Melissa procured a pirogue and a "pushin' stick," a long fork for bayou mud. We, too, could set sail, so we loaded it in the car and headed for the festivities.

[Recovery Pen is a column about living a good life in New Orleans.]

April is the cruelest month, but not for the reasons that inspired modernist poet T.S. Eliot. Simply put, April is the cruelest month because there's just too much to do. Not only do we have our two best festivals of the year: French Quarter Fest and Jazzfest, but southern Louisiana is in bloom with April festivals: Ponchatoula's Strawberry Festival, Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette, the Art in April Festival in Chalmette, PowWows in Kenner and Hammond, the Cajun Hot Sauce Festival in New Iberia, the Great Louisiana Bird Fest up on the north shore, the Angola Spring Rodeo & Crafts Fair, a Crawfish Boil Championship in Marrero, Baton Rouge's Earth Day, an Etoufee Festival in Arneaudville, and the Great Southern Bluegrass Festival in Angie. Oh, and let's not forget the International Cajun Joke-Telling Contest in Opelousas. Aiiih-eee!

Clearly, having fun is a full-time job here in the Big Busy. If only it paid like a full-time job. And, festival-goer's health insurance would be nice, too...

So as I pondered what to write for this week's blog, it occurred to me that April is also a fine month for do-gooders. Although Earth Day tends to come and go without much notice, this week's calendar brings us some environmentally-significant events. On Friday, Step It Up 2007 is kicking off their nationwide campaign against global warning here in littl' ol' New Orleans. That's right: for once NOLA will be the first to do something; everywhere else in the U.S. will be protesting on Saturday, after we've started the noise Friday night at the Lower 9th Ward levee in Holy Cross. As I understand it, the goal of Step It Up 2007 is to promote the idea of cutting carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. If you need extra incentive to hang out at the levee Friday night, the Soul Rebels will be playing and they're giving away free T-shirts! In a display of cultural sensitivity, Step It Up's T-shirts are red so they can be worn to a crawfish boil and not show stains. To participate, go to the corner of Reynes Street and the River at 5:30 this Friday.

Another environmentally-sensitive event rivaling that of the Step It Up rally in historical significance,

[This is a special bonus edition of Recovery Pen, reporting on the issue brought up in Monday's column.]

Sitting next to a former neighbor at Monday's Mid-City Neighborhood Association meeting, I agreed with him when he said that if he lived in any other city, he'd never attend such an event. But hey, that's part of the New Orleans magic: the government ain't gonna do it, so citizens have to get involved, or else sink into the swamp.

Easily, two hundred people were at the standing-room only meeting, with concerned residents sitting on the altar steps at Grace Episcopal Church. WWL cameras were there, as was our city council rep. Shelley Midura. The MCNO started the meeting with good news: the new community center at Comiskey Park is breaking ground in early June, a library will indeed be opening in Mid-City sometime this summer, and a local purse-snatcher was arrested. The authorities think that this particular snatcher was responsible for some 22 incidents. Thank God he's locked up in time for Easter, which is prime purse season.

And more good news: the Friends of Lafitte Corridor (charmingly known as FOLC) reported that they got three grants totalling $400,000 as well as pro-bono work on a master skematic from a Baton Rouge design firm. The FOLC folks (sorry--it's just too easy) are working to turn the dead railroad tracks of Lafitte Corridor -- which runs from Armstrong Park to Lakeview, between St. Louis and Conti -- into a vibrant bike trail with grass and benches and everything. With the City Council behind this project, and with money and a plan, it seems like a go.

On to the meat of the meeting: Victory Real Estate Investments LLC's retail development plan for Mid-City. Jennifer Weishaupt, MCNO Vice-President and Chairperson of the Economic Development committee, gave a presentation, showing herself to be an organized, professional, and passionate leader. Frankly, seeing her at the helm of the Big Box Resistance Front was a giant relief.

[Recovery Pen is about New Orleans, from the perspective of a Mid-City resident.]

I was out of town this weekend, which meant that I was once again faced with the question: "So, how are things going in New Orleans?"

Now, if any of you out there has a good answer to this question, please write in, because I have no idea what the hell to tell people. "We're getting used to it," though accurate, isn't very descriptive. "The azaelas are blooming," which is a friendly sort of thing to tell your grandmother, doesn't really get at the depth of what's happening here. Not that I can really conceive of the depth of what's happening here. So I end up describing how two people in my block have decided to jack their homes 15 feet up in the air and build foundations to the heavens. It's a good symbol of 2007 New Orleans life, I suppose: a structure which is practical in its absurdity, absurd in its practicality.

When I got home yesterday, local activist and fellow Mid-City resident Dar Wolnik (of Farmer's Market fame) had sent me an email protesting the "big box takeover" of Mid-City. Oh, shit, I thought to myself. I've only been gone for three days and now the big boxes are taking over my neighborhood?

Dar directed me to Saturday's lead Times-Pic story which tells us of Victory Real Estate Investments, how they plan to save Mid-City in a blaze of capitalism which will light up Bayou St. John like a mall parking lot. They didn't quite phrase it like that, but peek at the numbers: 20 contiguous acres of retail space, comprising 1.2 million square feet solely dedicated to getting plastic to the people. Like much of New Orleans, Mid-City has been walled off to big boxes such as Target and Dick's Sporting Goods (two potentials for the development), and Victory's hoping to blast those walls down.