Georgia, my third grader, is studying facts and opinions right now. “Pizza is the best food”: Opinion “Pizza has many different kinds of toppings”: Fact “Dogs are better than cats”: Opinion “There are almost 200 different breeds of dogs”:…
Every person in a family has their own role: the fixer, the clown, the rebel, the overachiever, the risk-taker, the bully. For the three kids in our blended family, for example, my stepson is the chill, cautious one; my…
I am an extremely superstitious person – I avoid sidewalk cracks and black cats, hate the number 13, pick up heads-up coins, and never open umbrellas indoors – so of course I always eat my black-eyed peas and cabbage…
It’s always light and dark around here, life and death sort of flirting with each other. My favorite aunt – probably my favorite non-parental blood relative from my family of origin – died when I was pregnant with Georgia.…
I know different stories resonate in different corners of the internet as we all build our own online bubbles. A couple of months ago, I asked my husband over dinner whether he thought what J.K. Rowling had Tweeted was…
Every year, for as long as I can remember, I get sick in the three weeks between Thanksgiving break and winter break. Usually it’s just a cold. Once I’m pretty sure it was the flu, although I never actually…
My general inclination, even in a good year (which I don’t think I need to explain that this is not), tends toward Scrooge-like as the holidays approach. It all just feels like such a slog, honestly: the parties, the…
It’s been a hell of a week. I suppose that can be loosely said of every week we’ve had since March 13, all of which kind of blur together into a hellscape smoothie, if you will, but this past…
It was the receptionist at my dad’s doctor’s office who gave me my first clue. “We’ll call you back right away,” she assured me. “In the meantime, have a wonderful day and happy holidays!” “Oh, uh … yeah ……
I wrote this four years ago after Donald Trump was elected president. I was hurt and angry … but I hoped we could work together as a nation. Now, four years later with a different outcome in the latest…
I love voting. I registered at the DMV when I switched my residency to Missouri for college, just after my 18th birthday, and since then, I have voted in almost every single election, whether it’s a big one for…
It’s funny the things you learn about people when you’re suddenly spending completely uninterrupted time with them. Even your own husband. Even your own children. For instance, although I certainly knew that Georgia had ADHD, it wasn’t until I…
There are, of course and unfortunately, many serious and tragic consequences of the pandemic and resulting quarantine: not only death and illness and grief, but also mental health concerns, social isolation, and economic impacts for so many families. There…
Sunday was National Coming Out Day, and I chose that day to publicly celebrate my older daughter, who came out to me about a year ago. (With her permission, obviously; I would never out her publicly without her consent.)…
It’s no real secret that I think fall is overrated, but mostly, it’s just a grudge left over from my very first “real fall” in Missouri more than 20 years ago. At first, I thought it was beautiful –…
The well-meaning older women in the grocery store line would always tell me it went by so fast, and I’d smile thinly while seething inside because it definitely didn’t seem to be going quickly. My baby was only 3…
I think I’ve forgotten whatever social skills I once had – and I’ve always been an introvert, always the kind of person who heads straight to the bar immediately upon arriving at any large social gathering because I need…
It’s a strange feeling, waiting for a hurricane that may or may not come. Time is lived in between the track/intensity updates at 4 a.m., 10 a.m., 4 p.m., and 10 p.m., time in which your plans keep shifting…
It used to just be my peers that I’d horrify with movies I hadn’t seen. “You haven’t seen Casablanca?” my husband yelled at me once, and then immediately made me stop everything to watch it. “What?! How have you…
I’ve really been trying to be positive lately. Last week, I was upbeat about not losing power; last month, I was looking forward to restarting virtual school; six months ago, I was desperately hoping for a quarantine because it…
I still remember Hurricane Cindy. My now-ex-husband and I were in town for the Fourth of July holiday in 2005, and it had been decent weather outside when we borrowed my dad’s truck to drive Uptown to visit a…
I still remember the day that my child-free-by-choice friend came over, looked into my kitchen, saw my sink piled high with dishes, and exclaimed, “My God! How long has it been since you did your dishes?” I side-eyed him…
I have two kids at two different schools this year – one New Orleans public school and one private school – and I myself work at a third New Orleans public school. If you think we’re all losing our…
I don’t necessarily think of myself as deeply Southern – although I have worn a hoop skirt, eaten fried okra and black-eyed peas and all manner of greens, and have a decided fondness for seersucker and monograms – but…
Eve is further proof, if any is needed, that New Orleans girls can never escape the city. After living here since the age of 3 and graduating from Ben Franklin High School, Eve moved to Columbia, Mo., where she received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism and became truly, unhealthily obsessed with grammar.She had originally intended to strike out to New York City and work in the cutthroat magazine industry there, but after Katrina, Eve felt a strong pull to return home, to her roots, her family, her waterlogged and struggling city – and a much more forgiving work atmosphere that would allow her to skip a routine of everyday makeup and size 0 designer label business suits and enjoy the occasional cocktail or three with an absurdly fattening lunch. She moved back home in January 2008 and lives in Mid-City with her two daughters, Ruby and Georgia; her stepson, Elliot; and her husband, Robert Peyton.Eve blogs about the joys and struggles of living in post-Katrina New Orleans, the unique problems and delights of raising a child in such a diverse and challenging city – including her experiences with the public education system – and her always entertaining and extremely colorful family.Eve has won numerous writing awards, including the Pirates Alley Faulkner Society Gold Medal, the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence award for column-writing and Press Club of New Orleans awards for her Editor’s Note in New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles and for this blog, most recently winning the award for "Best Feature Affiliated Blog."She welcomes comments, advice, empty flattery, recipes, drink invitations and – most especially – grammatical or linguistic debates.
