[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.

[Terra Nola documents the long-distance love affair between a New Yorker and New Orleans.]

I guess it was bound to happen. Inevitably, we were doomed from the start. Since I was given the honor more than a year ago of writing for bloggingneworleans, I've shared with you my love for the city. I've tried many times in many ways to tell you just what it is about this city that made me fall in love with her, and that which captivates me still.

Several thousands of words later I still can't quite put my finger on what it is that drew me to her, kept me near her--even in her darkest hour--and what, even now, keeps me somehow inextricably bound to her.

I love New Orleans, Nola, the Crescent City, this big easy, more than I've ever loved a place. I didn't even know it was possible to love a place until I met her. Now that the end of our blog is near, our "retirement," I have time once again to pause and think of the ways I love her, to share with you one last time what it is that makes your city so special to me.

Ours was a love that conquered distance if not time, one that weathered lack of money and the trappings of a normal affair. It was a love borne of a need deep within my soul that was filled only by this city full of the dying, the decaying and the dead. They walked among us as cartoons before in the form of vampires and goblins slinking behind a voodoo priestess' grave. Now they walk among us as our brothers and sisters, souls trapped in a past they did not create, drowning in it if they didn't when the flood hit.

These dead do not whisper quietly to us from their lace-iron balconies. No, they walk among us to remind us of what we lost, what we can never have again except in our dreams. Mine was such a dream, and a place I go back to each time I read yet another account of some actrocity burdening the city, burying her right along with our hope.

Just let her go, many say. But I can't. So let me tell you why, all the reasons why, why, why.

I love it that it's so hot down there I never want to visit again. Until I'm in the airport headed home.

I love it that every person I'v ever met every time I've visited has been nothing but sweet as pie to me. No one knows how to treat you right better than a Nola-ite.

I love it that the first time I went down there I felt like I was in another country. I'd wanted to escape, and I did.

I love it that the pinnacle of some people's day is to find a nice shaded balcony to sit on a sip a drink all night long. Crushed ice, a sprig of mint, perhaps a little sazarec. You know what I'm saying.

I love it that there's a story for every spot, a ghost in every room. Whether or not any of it's true you can feel the time passing in such places, their history soaking into you like the cool breeze wafting over you in a courtyard. It is real, if only in New Orleans.

I love it that there's such a fight over whether to bother with rebuilding the city. Makes the fight all the more worth it.

I love the iced coffee and everything fried--it may just be the same old thing but for some reason it just tastes better when you're eating it in New Orleans, especially if you're doing so with a view of the river.

I love those stupid bead stores run by people who don't speak English and are convinced you're going to steal something or that you're too drunk to steal anything.

I love it that life begins after dark. And it's quite a life.

I love it that when I leave all I ever want to do is go back. And I will be back. I will be back.

I love it that I can sit in the dark in the back of Napoleon House brooding about god knows what for as long as i want without someone hassling me. I could sit there forever contemplating, conniving or convincing myself.

I love it that jazz was born here, and that no matter where you go and no matter what time of day, you can hear a little music floating through the air. It's magic. No, really--it is.

It's a magical place, like being in a snowglobe with sparkles--or beads--instead of snow. It's my imagination come alive, my internal monologue sung back to me, the friend I never knew I had or needed, the one thing I can't live without.

Is New Orleans a thing? It's a place, for now. It's a state of mind. It's not necessarily where I'm form, but it's where I belong. And I will be back. I will be back.

Until that time you can find me on the internet. I'll be starting my own blog--and I will be writing about New Orleans. I can't not do it. I can also be found on AOL's ParentDish and That's Fit sites. Who knows where I'll turn up next, but you can rest assured that I'll be found wearing glitter when I do.

Thank you, for sharing in my love for this city. I hope we can save it.

My time here at BloggingNewOrleans has unfortunately been the shortest. I only joined the team and started blogging here back at the end of February. I've enjoyed my brief time writing here, and it's been nice to have this as an extra outlet in which to write about the city I love (even when it does drive me insane).

I'll still continue to write regularly at my own blog, MissMalaprop.com, and I will still try to feature local artists, designers and businesses whenever possible. (So if that describes you, feel free to get in touch and let me know about your work!) I've also got a monthly column at Antigravity Magazine, and locals can pick up a free copy when you're out and about -- out of towners and expatriates can always download a PDF copy of the magazine for free at the website.

I'm continuing to work with other area artists on building a thriving craft scene here, and to that extent much of my time over the next couple of months will be taken up by organizing a new holiday art & craft event on the Mississippi Coast at my mom's flea market. Dubbed Handmade Invasion, I'm hoping this event will help give many local artists an affordable new venue in which to sell and showcase their work, and hopefully it will give shoppers from all over the Gulf South a new alternative for their holiday shopping. I'll also still be working with the New Orleans Craft Mafia and the Louisiana Etsy Street Team to get the word out about local artists and crafters.

I'm said to see BloggingNewOrleans closing its doors (although really it just means no new posts, all the old posts will remain archived here forever). I have had the tendency to overextend myself over the past year or so though, so maybe it's good that I'll have one less project going on in my life. C'est la vie.

I hope you'll all keep in touch, and remember that there are plenty of other great bloggers all around NOLA. There's a fantastic (and huge!) list over at Think NOLA that I highly recommend checking out.

[This is a continuation of the author's series on New Orleans lessons, to commemorate both her 10th anniversary of living in New Orleans , as well as the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.]

U is for Under

When considering the letter "U," this preposition popped into mind first, although after yesterday's weather, I could have easily gone with "umbrella." Yet I feel like "under" says pretty much all you need to know about New Orleans, America's underdog, the steamy underbelly of our Puritan Union. It's also one of the few places - outside of San Francisco - where you can go out wearing your underwear and people don't even blink. Although I prefer a robe.

V is for Vampire

Although tourists flock to New Orleans to tour vampire author Anne Rice's house, hoping to come across a vampire in the evening shadows, they'd find more bloodsuckers out at our construction sites. Ask anyone who's had work done on their home - including our own Kelly Leahy - and you'll get an earful about dishonest contractors who either bled them dry or sucked the life out of them with postponements and switchbacks until the homeowner finally ended up in the fetal position. Now I know there are some good, honest contractors out there - and really, the three of you should form a club.

On the subject of vampires, I could go into detail about some of the gentlemen who have taught me valuable lessons during my time in New Orleans, but this isn't that kind of blog. Besides, you boys know who you are.

[Terra Nola documents the long-distance love affair between a New Yorker and New Orleans.]

Well, if I hadn't read it with my own eyes I would not have believed it (not that we should believe everything we read). Looks like there is to be a second Camellia Grill, this one in Destin, Florida, beloved by teenagers on spring break everywhere.

As I said to Kelly Leahy, co-blogger here at bloggingneworleans, there can be only one. Even if the reopened version in Nola is doing well enough, the new owner is messing with some pretty serious karma to try and duplicate his success outside of the Crescent City. It was a miracle the Camellia Grill reopened at all given the devastation and destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Why tempt fate?

But, that said, if you're going to tempt fate, you might as well do it in the pan handle. If a greasy spoon operation is going to make it anywhere, it can make it in Destin. Not that Destin is lacking in diners--to the contrary, they're everywhere.

Well, we're just about at the end of the road for Blogging New Orleans. As you may know, Friday the 14th is our last day as a live website. Into every life a little rain must fall, or so it's said, and this is just another example of that truism.

Speaking of rain, it's also said that it never rains unless it pours. This week, New Orleans is being drenched by wandering downpours that soak parts of the city while other parts stay dry. The photo was taken on Tuesday from the railroad tracks at Burgundy and Press Street in the Bywater, those dark columns are sheets of rain falling over the remoter reaches of the Upper 9th Ward, and as you can see, the rest of the area had sunny skies.

Weather here is pretty chaotic sometimes. Rain can fall on you from a seemingly clear blue sky. It can hit like a fist in some neighborhoods while others nearby don't get so much as a sprinkle. I think it's incredible; the idiosyncratic weather is one of the charms of New Orleans, in my opinion. Hyper-localized micro-cloudbursts, my term for these wandering small scale showers, keep things interesting around here.

Sudden, unexpected, and violent, they offer a handy metaphor for life these days. Lately, things for me personally have been substantially rainy (metaphorically), like some kind of existential storm has taken up a position over my head, sending watery sheets of questionable luck down upon me. I won't dwell overmuch on any of this, but since mid-July, I have dealt with a string of misfortunes that make me rethink my skepticism towards voodoo, particularly hexes.

Just a brief rundown: My computer (upon which I rely to write) had a fatal motherboard crash in late July. (It has since been repaired with a new motherboard, and a big THANK YOU goes to Ted C. at Common Ground tech support for his invaluable assistance in this matter.)

Then my bicycle was stolen in the middle of the day from the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library while I was inside. The "security" dude told me there are bike thefts every day there. My question to him should have been, "So then why the hell are you in here instead of out there?"

My housemates were roughhousing one night in late August and hit a table where my digital camera was. It fell and broke, and only the persistence born of my desperation brought it back to life.

Just when I was recovering from my computer and camera woes, my favorite outlet for my writing -- this very site -- was selected for retirement. I'll keep writing, of course, but will lament the loss of this space for community dialogue.

My car's brakes then started going bad, and now the car sits in a shop with an estimated $440 worth of repairs due.

And last night, my cell phone died with finality, taking the phone numbers of hundreds of friends with it. [Note: if you are a friend of mine and you are reading this, give me a call. Same number for me, but brand new phone-MR]

I begin to wonder if someone put a curse on me. New Orleans is, after all, the birthplace of American Voudoun.

I must note that these misfortunes are only manifesting themselves in the material plane; my relationships with friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors are generally wonderful, and it's a rare day that I don't randomly run into a friend or acquaintance whom I might not have seen in a while. Not to mention meeting new people just about every day, too. I am very lucky in ways that the misfortunes of the material world can not dim.

Speaking of dim, the light bulb in my bedroom just popped. I hope there's still a step ladder in the house, 'cos that bulb is 14 feet off the ground.

Last Saturday, the Common Ground Health Clinic in Algiers Point celebrated its second year of providing free health services to thousands of New Orleanians since its formation in the week after Katrina struck. Clinic supporters organized a block party at the corner of Teche and Socrates where the Clinic is located, serving up a barbecue and music and offering tours of the recently refurbished clinic (see photo below).

In a city with an international reputation for low-quality health care post-Katrina, the two Common Ground-sponsorerd free clinics -- the first in Algiers, the second on St. Claude St. in the Lower 9th Ward -- are much-needed community institutions that have served thousands of people since opening. Ancillary programs like the Latino Health Outreach Program, a spinoff project that serves the needs of non-English speaking residents and workers, also spread the tattered net of social services in New Orleans a little wider.

A staff member at the Algiers Clinic informed me that the Algiers Clinic sees between 20 and 50 people per day of operation; due to limited resources and red tape, the clinic is open on a limited schedule four days out of the week (Monday through Wednesday at various hours, and Saturday 12 - 3 pm). Despite ongoing shortages of medical services in the area, and despite the tremendous need for basic health care in the city, the Common Ground Clinics have had to fight for everything they have.

Judging by the state of medical services here two years after the traumatic events of 2005, it looks like their struggle to provide free, basic health care to neglected or impoverished populations will remain an uphill battle. But the anniversary party demonstrated that the community still needs and supports the services they offer.

[This is a continuation of the author's series on New Orleans lessons, to commemorate both the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as well as her 10th anniversary of living in New Orleans .]

S is for Savoring

It's no coincidence that I've learned how to meditate while living in New Orleans. Nor is it a coincidence that I've learned about the Slow Food movement and taken up gardening. If my northern family thought I was slow before, they think I'm downright sluggish now, after ten years of New Orleans life. And that's fine with me: living slowly allows me to contentedly follow my own muse, and screw the rest.

People ask how we can deal with the heat down here, and it's simple (but not always easy): slow down. Don't run anywhere; take your time and just relax. Sit and have some water. Take a nap. Watch the sunset. Savor your life before it passes you by.

T is for Traditions

Because we take life so slow around here, we make the time to hold onto our dear traditions. From red beans on Monday to grillades on Sunday, our heritage finds its way into our daily lives. If you take the streetcar downtown, or go to the racetrack on Thanksgiving, or eat king cake on Twelfth Night, or fix black-eyed peas and cabbage for the new year, or go to Galatoire's every Friday, or drive in the Mardi Gras truck parade, or start Jazzfest in the Gospel tent, you know what I mean.

I could go on and on with these standard traditions, but there are plenty of good ones dreamed up by our creative population. Grilling out on the neutral ground for Lundi Gras. Making waffles for brunch on Super Sunday. Spending Halloween in the graveyard. Rereading Gone With the Wind to cope with an Ash Wednesday hangover.

If you've got a juicy tradition to share, please leave a comment - you know we New Orleanians are always hungry for new ways to pass a good time!

[This is a continuation of the author's series on New Orleans lessons, to commemorate both the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as well as her 10th anniversary of living in New Orleans .]

This was a hard lesson to swallow. Let me tell you this: when you grow up surrounded by people with your own skin color, it's easy to pretend that you're not a racist. So easy to love people from afar, when you've never met any of them. You think you love these people, but you're actually in love with the idea of them.

New Orleans can be a training ground for racism. Here in the Deep South, people don't swallow their feelings like my northern cohorts. Since I've moved here, I've heard plenty of nastiness, and had my own nasty thoughts. When I've had stuff stolen. When I've had to wait at a slow register. Or when I've heard someone screaming at her kids. I've thought things that completely shocked the good person I considered myself to be.

It's hard, because racism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: you think I'm lazy and violent? I'll show you lazy and violent! You think I'm timid and submissive? Okay, I'll be timid and submissive. It's a crucial, sad truth of human nature: people tend to live up to what's expected of them. So if we want change, we have to expect change, and we start with our own selves.

Today I can be honest with myself when I have racist thoughts, and I call myself on it much more quickly. Not only have I grown comfortable living among people of colors, but I've felt a change: when I go back north to the white suburbs, I become a little nervous. Where's the color? I ask myself, scanning the pale crowd. Where is everybody? And as I wonder what this change is about, I consider that it could be reverse racism, or it could just be that I'm missing the good folks from home.

[This is a continuation of the author's series on New Orleans lessons, to commemorate both the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as well as her 10th anniversary of living in New Orleans .]

I propose a toast to New Orleans, where every man is king, and every woman - and some of the men - a queen!

Cheers!

[This is a continuation of the author's series on New Orleans lessons, to commemorate both the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as well as her 10th anniversary of living in New Orleans .]

I dare say that all Americans have some experience with parades, from big-city St. Paddy's Day extravaganzas down to small-town kiddies riding their streamer-festooned bikes on country roads to celebrate America's independence. Myself, I'd thought that my participation in a ticker-tape parade celebrating the troops home from Iraq back in '92, in a marching band on the streets of downtown Chicago, was the pinnacle of my parading life.

Oh, how wrong I was. I moved to New Orleans, where parades roll at night. And it makes a difference to see a parade after the sun's gone down, when the floats rise up out of the evening shadows and the flambeaux carriers' faces shine under the light of their torches. We spend a full year crafting our floats by hand, and then light them up with thousands of tiny bulbs. When they finally appear on the streets, against a backdrop of screaming crowds and marching band music, it's no wonder that people fight over beads - they want to bring a tiny bit of this magic home with them.

And if you get sick of the big parades, Fat Tuesday spawns hundreds of tiny ones, troupes of friends where the locals become the floats, painting and feathering themselves into the most amazing creations this side of Rio.

It's your choice, darlin': you can come to New Orleans to watch the parades, or you can come down to be the parade.

Our house alarm woke me from my afternoon nap this afternoon (it's a glamorous life being barefoot and pregnant, let me tell you). Several loud beeps told me that the power was out and I was instantly aware of the lack of A/C in the house. I first blamed the guys working on the siding for tripping the breaker yet again but as my neighbors poured out of their houses and started yelling up and down the street -- as is their custom during power outages --- I knew this was an Entergy problem. Fortunately the siding dudes were able to switch gears and start working on the roof so all was not lost.

Our status as of today is that we are waiting for a plumbing inspection to close in the walls. The contractor told me it would be done by Thursday of last week and the plumber told me it would be last Friday. "I know you are excited to have this finished but not nearly as excited as I am," he added. I'm not sure what that meant since it has been clear from the beginning that this job has never been a priority for him as he shows up late in the day, works for an hour or two and leaves. He's seriously lucky that I haven't started throwing things at his head whenever he seeks me out to complain.

Beyond the plumber, I'm a little disappointed with the fact that there is about 550 square feet of addition that does not require plumber and can therefore be insulated and sheet rocked, right? I knew the contractor was whacked when he told me that it would only be three weeks from last Monday but he seemed so sure of it! I'm just hoping that we finish by the original estimate which is the first week of October. I don't know how long it takes for carpeting to arrive but I'm glad that I've already bought and paid for my tiles as they took over a week due to a custom order.

The end is near, however, I can feel it. I get all of my home renovation information from watching flipping shows on television and on those programs it takes about two minutes to sheet rock and paint an entire house so that can't be too many days in real time! We're close enough to the end that I am taking a hard look at the budget to make sure that I'll have enough for the final payment and a new shower curtain -- and maybe some blinds as well.

[This is a continuation of the author's series on New Orleans lessons, to commemorate both the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as well as her 10th anniversary of living in New Orleans .]

N is for Neutral Ground

Wouldn't it be great if there was a world's neutral ground? People from all nations could go there to catch beads at Mardi Gras parades, have Sunday afternoon cookouts, and park their cars when the rain falls a little too hard. While the world's powers continue their endless warring, us regular folks could gather on the streetcar tracks and make fair-trade deals: one can of High Life for a Popeye's chicken breast. No glass allowed, friends, it's safety first out here.

How great would it be to see kids from all cultures fighting over a plush football tossed from a float? To sing drinking songs in every language? To hang out in a place where traffic's permanently stopped so that people can sit in their lawnchairs and shoot the shit?

This is my dream, dear readers, and it may never come true. Fortunately for us here in New Orleans, there's always a neutral ground, no matter how many battles life throws our way.

O is for Okra

I'd never given much thought to this hardly little vegetable until my neighbors planted it in spades this past spring. From its lowly spot on the table - rarely seen in its pure state, but hidden in gumbo or fried beyond recognition - I never would have imagined that it came from a plant that towers above my head and blooms such exquisite flowers.

If you only knew okra from its restaurant incarnations, you'd never guess that it grows so fast that if you don't pick daily, those stinkers will end up as long as your forearm. Sadly, they're too tough to eat at that length, but their long, tapered shape remind me of witch's fingers. And voila: another Halloween costume is born. This year, keep on the lookout for the lady wearing a dried-okra skirt!

At last week's "International Tribunal on Katrina and Rita," one of the more striking parts of the event was the presentation of the second witness on the subject of Women's Rights. Ms. Stephanie Mingo, a resident of New Orleans for 40 years, lived in St. Bernard Housing project prior to Katrina. After the storm, she evacuated with four children and one grandchild in tow. Her mother died on the Gentilly bridge, unable to survive the physical and mental anguish of the storm's aftermath. Ms. Mingo's testimony was powerful and informative.

Ms. Mingo and her family evacuated, returned, and are now staying in the Iberville project. She doesn't like it there and wants to move back into her St. Bernard home. She has worked for the Orleans School Board for ten years -- "not that long" Ms. Mingo says -- and is determined to stay in her home town.

Her stubbornness in staying in a project known as much for trouble as for housing might seem odd to those of us who have never stayed in government housing, but it's the home that she wants to come back to. She loves her job as a food services technician at a local school, and isn't afraid of hard work. As Ms. Mingo said from the witness seat while testifying to the court, "When I tie these shoes, I'm not too proud to do anything." Her home and community were humble, but she managed to raise and put through college three of her kids, and the fourth is college-bound.

Public housing may be the upscale-white developer's nightmare, but a lot of hard-working, disciplined people lived there before Katrina, and want to return to their homes and communities which they are trying against all odds to preserve.

The second editorial in the Times-Pic today ("Share the excitement") gently took the Mayor and City Council to task for the secrecy surrounding the recently-approved plan for the first stages of redevelopment of 17 targeted zones throughout the city. The editors should have gone much further in their criticism. The secrecy of the elected leaders could be characterized as disingenuous at best, at worst, it is rife with the opportunity for corruption, influence-pedaling, and back-door politics. The kind of things that people living here are pretty sick of already.

If the plans to redevelop New Orleans are agreed upon by elected officials, then the democratic population who voted for these officials are entitled to see these plans, comment upon them, and above all, take hope from these plans.

Citizens like you and me won't be able to do this, though, until next month. This month is reserved for the New Orleans power structure to assure itself a profitable central role in the rebuilding effort. There are properties to be acquired, and little old ladies and blind old men to be unscrupulously evicted or bought out of their homes for a pittance by scheming developers.

There are dummy corporations to set up, in order to apply or bid for contracts (presuming, that is, that there are any contracts left to be claimed on the first $117 million in development funds; it's even money that big time disaster profiteers Halliburton and Bechtel had a seat at the table when these plans were shown to "other stakeholders" by Tsar Blakely. After all, there's federal money being poured around, and while many still suffer, there's no reason that good, highly-connected corporations like Kellogg, Brown, & Root or Fluor can't earn a buck or two million while shutting out local contractors until the cream has been skimmed from federal largesse.).

Admittedly, the bulk of planning was likely done long ago, and the REAL players didn't have to wait for the council's approval. They already have their schemes in order, you can believe that. Incidentally, this may be the reason why Nagin's office has been so insular lately; he and his cronies have probably been busy making calls and setting up deals with friends, family, and high-powered interests. There's a lot of loot on the way.

Which reminds me of the spray painted warnings after Katrina: You loot, we shoot. Only now, the shooting should be metaphoric.

But don't be surprised to find an awful lot of looting when the development money comes to town.