last week 4/23 - 4/28

I realize I'm behind on the updates. My apologies. Time seems to be flying by more swiftly than ever.

Monday

I don't even remember. Sorry.

Tuesday

Lunch with Tara. The Pussycat Dolls found their new Doll, and I'm never watching The CW again. At least until next season. "Why is it every time I come home to you actually watching TV, there's some half naked chick dancing on screen?" I don't know, Nate. I don't know.

Wednesday

Wednesday night Shannon and I went to the best idea she ever had. "So Sinfully Sweet" at Morton's Steakhouse downtown. Blue Frog Chocolates decided to a chocolate tasting (with a different wine accompanying each), had Morton's serve hors d'ouevres (chicken tenders, bruschetta, mushroom caps stuffed with lump crabmeat, chicken tenders, and steak tenderloin sandwiches), and had masseuses from Aveda giving rubdowns. It was quite possibly the best two hours of my life. And I got drunk because there was a different wine for each of the five chocolates and Shannon would take one sip and insist I finish the rest for her, besides my own. Watching LOST drunk really isn't as hard as one would think.

Thursday

I had lunch with Tara and then went over to my professor's house for our final class (since she cancelled the Tuesday one). I presented my screenplay. It seemed to go over well. We all brought beer since she said "no hard liquor" after "certain behavior" last time we all drank together at Juan's Flying Burrito. She made us dinner (soft tacos, pico, guac, beans, rice). Good times.

Friday

Last Friday of classes. Ever. Shannon and I decided to turn our last Friday class ever into a drinking game. (We're good at this sort of drinking-in-what-may-seem-an-unlikely-situation. Just like the end of lagniappe's Bruff Happy Hour.) That was fun. TGIOver. A little more happy hour. We went to dinner at 5 Happiness, which was sort-of-good Chinese food. Asian Cajun still reigns supreme even though it's not traditionally Chinese.

Nicole and I met up to go to Erin's Cocktail Party, which was one of the best parties I've ever been to. Almost all the guys had shirts and ties on and the girls wore cocktail (duh) dresses. She had two bars (with bartenders), all the liquors, mixers, extras (cherries, lemons, limes, olives), one could want. And kegs. And the backyard was lit up with paper lanterns. Gorgeous. I was telling Nicole that if it weren't for the ice luges and beer pong table, I could have mistaken it for, like, a "grown-up" party. Tons of fun.

When we got there, we jumped immediately into the Cupid Shuffle. Nicole has a little trouble when the directions aren't given, but it was fun. A few hours later, after splitting up and mingling with different friends, we did another Cupid Shuffle. This time Nicole had trouble even with directions. "No, Nicole. Left. Left. Your other left!"

And then we left to go to another party at the "Calhoun Castle of Craziness." Nicole doesn't remember anything past this point, but I distinctly recall her verbally abusing two drunk boys walking near us. (Not as bad as Eileen in the Mardi Gras flashback though.) When we got to the house, she went to the bathroom, and I talked to Jose, whom I'd just met. By the time she came back out, I had realized we were at the completely wrong party. It was a Latin one. And the ladies of the castle are six white chicks. so we left.

When we finally made it to the correct party a block or so further, we saw more beer pong and nurses walking around giving people "shots" to cure senioritis. Good times.
We ended up at Dillon's house in his kitchen. The two of them had what may have been the most circular of drunk debates ever. But I was amused.

Saturday

Saturday was full of delicious food. Lizzie, Wes, and I went to Domilise's for po-boys. (Another restaurant crossed off the list.) We took them to the levee and had a little picnic with them and Abita. I got the Wednesday/Saturday special of barbecued beef. Awesome. The best part of the levee layout was when the ice cream truck pulled up, and all the half-naked college kids ran for it like a bunch of children. I was part of the bunch. It was worth it. We had a potluck that night that was pie themed. Pizza pie, chicken pot pie, spinach and mushroom pie, quiche, chocolate cream pie. Awesome. I was going to make Emeril's banana cream pie with caramel and chocolate drizzles (all from scratch like at the restaurant, but seeing how the grocery was out of ripe bananas... that didn't work. I brought apple instead. Then Lizzie convinced me out to Madigan's because Maureen (among others) were there. Adrian and his new Sig Ep brothers stumbled in soon after, so that was a pleasant surprise.

off to a good start

Easter Break, that is. So far it's been pretty chill. Last night was just LOST and Monster's Ball since everyone was stressed/tired/gone. I really think Halle Berry poured out all her creative energy into that one movie, and all we get now is the nothing that's left. Mike called. He'll be in town this weekend, so I'm pumped for that. That'll definitely add some craziness to the next few nights.

My only Thursday class was cancelled, and lunch with Tara was cancelled (by her). So I had today completely free. I slept in, read a little, conference call with Dad and Adrian, conference call with Mom and Bella, and then went for a jog. During this, I got hungry, so I ran to Hana. Japanese is the cuisine I feel most comfortable at dining alone because you just sit at the sushi bar and chat with the chef.

I ordered omakase (Japanese for "chef's choice" and what I always like to do when eating sushi). After the requisite noodle salad with chopped I-don't-know-what on top, he made me two huge "tako wasabi" rolls, which were octopus but very tender, almost the consistency of chewy raw oysters. Awesome. And then a plate of California rolls and several nigiri: Eel, salmon both fresh and smoked, snapper, shrimp, squid, tuna, and a marinated white tuna.

One of the Samsung HDTVs was tuned to CNN, where the closed captioning told me they were reporting on the rising rate of college students binge drinking. Then they started listing how various states are changing laws and policies to stop this. New York is pushing this, Massachusetts is banning that, California's suggesting whatever, etc. They showed a map and highlighted states when they talked about them. Guess what Louisiana's doing? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Speaking of binge drinking, I forgot to mention a discussion we had in my last screenwriting class. The professor pointed out that, in one of my colleague's scripts, "half the scenes" take place in bars. I gently corrected her that only two scenes took place in bars, but they were the ones with the most dialogue. She offered the idea that a movie in which "every character is drunk the entire time might get boring." Everyone's jaws fell. I also pointed out that in every screenplay we've read that's set in New Orleans (Is there a trend here?) a majority of the characters spend a majority of their time drunk. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. She then observed that she's taught in several campuses around the country and that "you Tulane students definitely do a tad more drinking than average college students." Go us!

I'd call this a good day.

Debate in terrorism class. Lunch with Tara. We caught up on our spring breaks. Shannon and Shivani joined us for lunch. Screenwriting class. I apparently forgot to attach my screenplay to the E-mail I sent out, but miraculously I was still ahead of the game because the other two presenters either forgot to send out E-mails or just entirely forgot to... write something? We watched a few clips from Goodfellas which is a fantastic movie.

Our class went out to dinner at Juan's Flying Burrito. I took Abie's suggestion to actually try his favorite... the fish tacos. (Yes, literal fish tacos.) They were surprisingly good. We ended up spending about $100 on food and then another $100 on drinks. (This is impressive considering their happy hour special was $1 beers and 2-for-1 margaritas but whatever.) Then we decided to buy a $50 chocolate cake, but that was worth it.

Back here, I took cake over to Lauren and Steph and then invited Whitney over to have some. She brought Ryanne and Tully with her for a study break.

I decided to be "responsible" or whatever and stayed in after instead of going out with the screenwriting people again...

terrific Tuesday

So Tuesday morning I found myself still up (from Monday) at two for no good reason. Then at 2:30 a good reason, namely Chad, showed up... on my buddy list I mean. We haven't had a chance to really catch up (since his move to Australia) except before Mardi Gras. So we talked for like an hour and exchanged our international cell phone numbers. (This might prove dangerous for future drinking nights.)

The unfortunate result was that I slept through my first class because, in my half-awake stupor, I set my alarm for PM instead of AM.

It was okay though. Apparently I didn't miss much. I went to my regular lunch with Tara, and we mused about our future plans... specifically Jacque's wedding. And we missed a third of our triangle.

After that, I went to screenwriting for the three fastest academic hours of my week. Good screenplays and two presentations.

Dinner with Ben as usual. He dropped me off at The Columns after for the 1718 New Orleans Reading Series. It was fantastic. Author Bev Marshall and four seniors from Loyola and Tulane. Excerpts, nonfiction, story, poetry, and prose, respectively. Lots of drinking.

I'm definitely going to future ones if anyone wants to tag along.

• April 10th - John Biguenet
• May 1st - Andrei Codrescu

And if I'm feeling creative and the team likes my work, maybe there will be a short story or a few poems by yours truly.

After that I wound up at Delachaise, which (for anyone else who was there for Jenna's birthday) is so NOT a lesbian bar. Four-cheese plate and duck terrine/foie gras/armanac pate; house white and house red.

I ended up talking on the phone with Gisela for a while. I'm sooo looking forward to her visit for graduation.

Whitney and Tully picked me up on the way back from Billy Joel's sold-out concert. They were too tired to go out more, so I wound up visiting with Stephen (not to be confused with Steven) a while.

Yes, you read correctly. Stephen. But it's all good. What's past is past.

Tuesday

Terrorism midterm wasn't too bad.

I went over to Adrian's, and we caught up for a bit. He brought me some special deliveries from home. He also showed me his new Polo Rugby wardrobe. (Their "skull and crossbones" insignia coincidentally matches with Sig Ep's. How lucky/convenient for Adrian because now he has an excuse to buy all that PR stuff besides just liking it.)

I met for lunch early with Tara (and Rachel today too). I missed Alison and Frazer by just a little because I had to make a deposit at the bank and print screenplays at the lab.

Lots happened in screenwriting class today. We reached a consensus on how we should spend our provost-awarded "entertainment budget." (Dinner and drinks, naturally.) And we had class for the first time in three weeks. And we canceled another upcoming one. This would be exciting, but if I had it my way, I'd have screenwriting every day and my other classes combined into a one week three-hour session. It's my favorite course thus far.

Chick: "Have you guys ever seen that movie Maria Full of Grace? The main character there, this girl who's smuggling drugs, and I can't for the life of me remember her name--"
Me: "Maria."
Chick: "Oh! Yeah. That's it."

The most (horribly) sensational part of the day was when I returned my father's phone call during a break in screenwriting class. (He called during the first half.) He told me my grandfather called to let him know there was a passing in the family. Unfortunately he didn't specify that it wasn't my grandmother but another "Letty" (my great aunt) right away. And then I asked if Adrian knew of and the correct identity of the death, and he said I should double-check.

After the break, we convinced the teacher that for our last assignment we should analyze the screenplay of and have a screening of the great Eddie Murphy film Coming To America.

Ben and I had our weekly dinner and caught each other up on the past few days. And now I should be writing a screenplay or doing other work or sleeping, but I'm going to push to get these other two Mardi Gras photo albums up.

the week so far

"I saw you at Krewe de Vieux the other night, Andrew. Not going to say what you were doing but I saw you there!" - Professor Cunningham

Sunday:
Harrah's
Cafe Brazil
Krewe de Vieux
DBA
port of call
Bubba Gump

Lauren hates when anyone grabs her boob(s).

Monday:
classes
gym
Adrian time

Tuesday:
terrorism classs
Tara time
screenwriting class
Ben time
Martinique Bistro
Pitt St. Pretties time
Lauren time

"dress up fancy" ... just a little

Wednesday:
class
Rachel time
classes
nap
LOST
studying

week's goin' well

Sunday was Lizzie's birthday dinner at Lebanon's Cafe, and then we took her back to Steph's apartment to "surprise" her with the cake that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! T'was fun.

I don't remember what I did on Monday besides go to classes, so I guess it couldn't have been all that exciting?

I love my Tuesday schedule: Terrorism class, lunch with Tara, my awesome screenwriting class, and dinner with Ben. I went with him and Katy to a late showing of Children of Men, which was awesome.

I still want to see other Academy Award nominated films like Pan's Labyrinth, to see what everyone loves about it so much, and Babel, to see what everyone except for The Academy hates about it so much.

Helen Mirren deserves to win for best actress.

Children of Men deserves to win for cinematography.

TGIF

I've been back for a few days now spending my time by hanging out, catching up, eating and, of course, drinking with friends. My final Tulane class schedule (pending a possible drop) is screenwriting, long calculus II, introduction to popular music, ethics, adolescent psychology, and domestic and international terrorism.

Late night at The Boot - Lizzie thinks I look like Adrian in this picture.
I think it's the eyes. After all, we are brothers.