I just got back from New Orleans last night. It was my first vacation in a REALLY long time. Like, I literally just did whatever I wanted and saw tons of things and was a tourist for nine days. Or eight? I don’t remember. And I met up with someone down there who showed me all kinds of things. Including a swamp tour where we saw alligators!

To lure alligators to the tour boats, they toss marshmallows in the water. It was honestly so cute. The alligators eat them because they just look like big white blobs, and alligators can only see in black and white. I never knew that was how they engaged with alligators in the wild. Most of the ones we saw were about 4 to 6 years old so not HUGE but still like, I wouldn’t stick my hand in there. But the tour guides do! They try to lift up alligator heads, but mostly the alligators are kinda like “Fuck off! Where are the marshmallows?!” and pull away.

I also wanted to try eating alligator so I had it a couple times, once fried alligator tail bites, and the other was an alligator sausage that was cut up and put on a stick and deep fried. They were great! They taste like chicken. So that means dinosaurs tasted like chicken. It’s fascinating!

New Orleans was a pretty magical city. And like, such deep complex traumatic history. I tried to be really respectful of spirits who live there. I did go on a ghost and vampire tour. There’s real vampires there that drink blood and “donors” who help by giving blood! It’s just like my video game!!! I was just like shit I fuckin’ knew it! The ghosts sounded interesting too but not like anything I would feel comfortable experiencing.

I was staying in an Airbnb and I was worried about ghosts but it wasn’t ghosts that were in there, there were two of the fucking hugest cockroaches I’d ever seen instead. And like, the size of my thumb!!! My thumb is small, but still that’s not a size of bug I’m comfortable with. My friend kept calling them palmetto bugs tho ha ha.

I also went on a whirlwind 24 hours to New York City JUST to see Cate Blanchett get the Chaplin Award. She was amazing. I was in awe. And it was almost my birthday, so that night I went to sleep happy and woke up 44 years old. I didn’t get to see Todd Haynes tho because he got COVID the morning of the event, and Bradley Cooper wasn’t there either. But Christine Vachon presented the award and I’m a fan of her too!

I got approached by a curator at a major gallery that I’ve wanted to show in for ages. I’m not sure what will happen but it’s exciting, I hope it develops into an awesome opportunity.

WHAT ELSE?

I tried to be as careful as I could on my trip. It wasn’t so hard. I wore KN95’s almost every time I was inside everywhere. I took it off to eat. If there was a good open draft or breeze I let my guard down. I did eat pretzels on the planes, and Americans were just like, no-masking it everywhere. I was honestly shocked at their recklessness. I didn’t take a lot of selfies because I look less cute with a mask. BUT it was honestly not too bad doing harm reduction by masking as much as possible. I was concerned I might have gotten it anyway. But no symptoms, and today I tested again for the first time since I got back and the test was negative. I’m gonna do another test in a few days. But I feel fine.

If I was able to have an amazing adventure AND not get COVID, I am going to keep taking carefully mitigated risks, because this was so fun and also I don’t want to live on my couch alone forever. But yeah! ADVENTURE!