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05/15/12
What makes a pleasure a guilty one? Is it because it's too "mainstream" or because it's over-saturating pop culture? Is it because it's viewed as sophomoric or unsophisticated? Cheesy as hell?
Well, whatever the reason, there are definitely things out there that I feel are guilty pleasures of mine, mainly because I feel a slight (or a huge) twinge of shame for admitting that I like them. But why should I feel like that? I sometimes feel like things that are viewed as sophisticated are just big phonies while something that's seen as a "guilty pleasure" is at least genuine and unpretentious. For example, in the music world, bands like Animal Collective or Grizzly Bear get all the blog love and near-perfect ratings on Pitchfork, but...
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05/01/12
I don't know what it is about brunch, but it's my favorite. Maybe it's because I secretly wish I could have French toast and mimosas for every meal, but I look forward to a nice weekend brunch with my friends all week. Here are my favorite places to go in New Orleans:
1. Suis Generis
This is a pretty new place in the Bywater on Burgundy Street and across from another relatively new joint, Maurepas (pretty soon we won't have anywhere to park in our neighborhood with all these awesome new restaurants popping up). This place is cool because their menu is constantly changing to reflect what's available locally and what's seasonal. Everything from the booths to the chairs are delightfully mismatched. And they have a DJ booth.
They have also paid...
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04/17/12
I love when people visit me.
My family came down over the weekend. My mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law. Whenever I'm showing people around New Orleans, I love to get vistors off the beaten path a little bit. I always warn them to not wear a bunch of Mardi Gras beads around if it's not Mardi Gras and always try to ram it into their brains that the hurricanes at Pat O's and hand grenades at Tropical Isle are a lot more powerful than they seem and to pace themselves. They usually don't listen, but hey, we've all been there.
It was a little strange for me at first to live in a tourist destination because I come from a place that definitely does not attract many visitors (except politicians salivating over swing states), but I've come to find that I love...
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04/03/12
How many chances in a lifetime do you get to have your favorite team in a Final Four contest in your city?
My friends and I talked about getting tickets to the games, but in the end decided that several hundred dollars for nosebleed seats wasn't really worth it, so we just had a party at my house on Saturday night - with plans to walk into the Quarter and party if we won.
I was excited all week. On Friday night I could barely stand it I was so happy. It felt like everything was a little brighter and shinier. It was like the last day of school or Christmas Eve. The weekend held the possibility for anything to happen. A weekend of happiness and total bliss.
And while we ended up having a lot of fun, it certainly was not total bliss....
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03/20/12
I've purposefully been off the grid since I left town a few weeks ago to get married. My husband (it's going to be weird to write that for awhile) brought his laptop but I have a strong aversion to anything that isn't a Mac, so I never used it myself. I just used my phone to keep up with the essentials ... bank account, "The Walking Dead" blogs, basketball scores. But for the most part I was offline and it was pretty damn cool and refreshing.
I'm sitting here in front of my computer now that I'm back in town and this monitor actually feels pretty weird since I've become accustomed to the tiny screen of my phone, reading funny articles to get me through airport layovers. I discovered that while I was away, Brad Pitt was in town,...
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03/06/12
It's hard to write after watching "The Walking Dead." I think I should not write these blogs on Sundays because it means that whatever I've watched on HBO or AMC is in my head making it not very clear for the mystical writing muse to come through. And I'm also not sure how normal it is for me to get as pissed off as I do at television shows. They're fictional. Not real.
But I digress.
I'm getting married in, like, days, people. It just really snuck up on me. Everyone kept telling me, "enjoy your engagement, it goes fast!" And I was like, "Whatever. It's over a year ... I've got plenty of time."
And now I have no more time. So forgive me if I get a little introspective and mushy in the next few paragraphs....
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02/21/12
I read Tori Amos's autobiography Piece by Piece a few years ago, and in it she wrote that if she had to do it over again she would never get married and go on tour at the same time again, because it was so hard to plan. And in the same vein, I'm not sure I'd plan to get married right after Mardi Gras again.
One one hand, it's been awesome. What better time to have a bachelorette party then during Carnival?
But on the other hand, wedding planning takes a lot of time and attention. Like, serious-attention-to-minute-details kind of thing. And thinking about centerpieces during the constant demand of Mardi Gras is a little bit of a downer. It's really to the point where I'm like, "I can't go to these parades - I have to work...
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02/07/12
As I'm writing this I'm still recovering from Krewe du Vieux. It seemed like my whole neighborhood was abuzz all weekend with celebratory energy ... except on Sunday. I think the whole of Bywater and the Marigny was hungover on Sunday, its denizens having partied all day on Saturday for the parade kickoff that was Krewe du Vieux - float after float of political satire. Also, every single float seemed to relate to the theme that everyone is getting screwed by someone, because nearly every float depicted screwing. Even the Superdome (sorry, Mercedes-Benz Superdome) was getting screwed. But my favorite was Humpty Dumpty screwing Mother Goose on a float entitled "Nursery Crimes." I'd post a pic of it, but I think this blog is supposed to be at least PG-13.
Here...
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01/24/12
When I was in Ohio over the holidays, my cousin asked me about Mardi Gras because he was thinking about visiting. Like most people up north and maybe everywhere that's not Louisiana, he thought that Mardi Gras was just about one day, with one major parade. I was like, au contraire!
I told him that, no, Carnival Season lasts for six weeks or so, with the real serious partying going on for at least two of those weeks. Mardi Gras Day is actually the sprint to the finish when we're all, okay we can do this! One more day of binge drinking and then we can relax until Easter. Thank god, my liver hurts.
And like my cousin, when I first moved down here a few years ago, I thought the same thing he did. I thought it was just a day, Fat Tuesday. I thought there were maybe a few...
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01/10/12
Wedding stuff is all around me right now, I can't seem to escape it - or turn away from it, for that matter. I'm in the middle of planning my wedding (or rather, making the plans come to fruition). Also, there are like 20 other people in my office who are also engaged and planning weddings. We've just published our winter edition of New Orleans Bride Magazine. And everyone is running around like mad, trying to get everything ready for the Bridal Showcase we've got going on tomorrow at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside.
Yep. Wedding overload.
And I just watched a "celebrity wedding" special on E! to top off an all-around overdose of weddingness. It was quite awesome to organize my wedding guest list as I was listening to "wedding experts"...
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Annie Drummond is a graphic designer and artist from Columbus, Ohio. She has a degree from the Columbus College of Art & Design. Two years ago she made the move from the Midwest to New Orleans' Bywater neighborhood and fell deeply in love as she discovered the rhythms and traditions of her new city. Annie is a production designer for Renaissance Publishing and a Jedi Master. In addition to The Lighter Side, she writes about food, art and design (and other stuff) at www.AnniedelaDolce.com.
