Snow in New Orleans!?

Photo by Kyle Bella

What a bizarre day. The entire motive for my none-too-soon escape from Western Massachusetts was avoiding the white stuff: avoiding those grey slushy days where white gunk keeps pissing down out of the sky, soaking into my clothes and shoes, soaking the bottom of my jeans into never-drying, dampish mass.

I loathed the snow and cold more then just about anyone at Simon's Rock, I think - I enjoyed the winter-wonderlandish aspects of it for roughly five minutes and then the bitching would commence as I pulled 12 and a half layers on over my skinny, always freezing frame. (I am like those Italian greyhound dogs who wear loosely fitting sweaters and quiver on lady's couches, just like that.)

So when I woke up this morning and looked out the window, I assumed I was going completely insane.

Which I was not. No, that was real honest to Jesus snow coming out of the sky, in the Southern sunny states I had run to to escape such an eventuality - flurries and snowflakes, all that cheery shit that makes my eyebrow twitch - and furthermore I was going to have to actually go out into it. To take a final exam. The snow it seemed had followed me like some malovelent weather spirit, all the way from the Berkshires to the Big Easy. I wonder if it will perhaps begin snowing the next time I am sipping a Mai-Tai on a tropical isle. Probably.

Anyway, I slogged off to the street car stand through the slush, astonished/aghast that it was actually sticking - and was very happy to find the streetcars were running, pushing through the snow clouds like battering rams. The streetcar driver admittedly couldn't see a damn thing beyond the window - the snow was just slamming into the glass and adhering to it - but we soldiered on anyway. Unfortunately the risk of crunching into someone was greatly improved by all the paparazzi: tons of fresh faced Citizen Journalists emerging from their homes to stand right in front of the streetcar and take pictures of its picturesque form emerging nobly out of the blizzard. This meant that all of us inside the car started yelling profanities and GET OUT DA WAY YOU GODDAMN FOOL at the person ahead of us, who always jumped aside at the very last possible second with a real swell picture. This made for a stressful start to the morning.

We did end up getting to Tulane, and I was amused to see all the other Northeasterners complaining about the weather: "I came here to get AWAY from the snow! It's not ALLOWED to do this! I'm calling my daddy's public defense lawyer," et all. I merely smiled grimly, wrapped all my possessions in plastic bags, and soldiered on through the dampness and the slushiness and the wintery misery. I knew the score. I'd been here before.

It's all blown over now and it was a bit of an experience - how often do you get to see the Big Easy carpeted in an angel-butt pure veneer of pure driven snow? But I still can't stand being cold.