New Orleans

After spending a decade in New York City, honing his craft as a sideshow performer, my brother decided to take his act to New Orleans. He moved south in January but spent a couple months performing at the Fringe Festival in Adelaide, Australia. When he returned home in March we used some extra mileage points to pay him and his girlfriend Frankie a visit.

I didn’t have high expectations for New Orleans. I suppose my impressions of the place were limited to the boozy and dramatic season of MTV’s Real World: New Orleans (probably the last season of the show I watched before moving out of my parents house to go to college). So imagine my surprise to discover and explore a city vibrant with colorful homes, good food, and good people.

We hadn’t flown with Fox since he was still nursing himself to sleep on flights – but he traveled like a champ. I introduced him to pay phones (he was obsessed) and we treated ourselves to free crackers and cheese in the United Club lounge. He managed to get in a good nap on our flights and when he wasn’t awake he was busy flirting with fellow passengers.

Once we got to New Orleans we met up with my brother and his girlfriend Frankie at their apartment – the very same apartment where the “Stella!” balcony scene happens in A Streetcar Named Desire. Together we ate our weight in biscuits and beignets, explored art and architecture in the French Quarter, and spent all our money on psychics in Jackson Square. We ate donuts on magazine street and climbed very old oak trees in City Park. We chased Fox in a park to the sound of musician playing a fiddle. A man may have been overdosing on a bench nearby.

I fell in love a little harder on this trip – with my family, my baby, and the adventure that always awaits us.

P.S. You can hear more about my trip to New Orleans in the a secret episode of Being Boss called Cultivating Confidence – available only at www.lovebeingboss.com