picture.

I've been reading up a little on Gustav and Katrina. I'm a little in awe that, on the 3rd anniversary of Katrina, which came ashore as a Category 3 hurricane, and claimed 1,800 American lives (1,500+ in Louisiana alone), the state is again declaring a state of emergency and calling for mandatory evacuations. Gustav is scheduled to arrive Monday morning as a Cat 4, and this time, not even the SuperDome will be available for refuge. The city is evacuating, and if you choose to stay, you're on your own. It's disconcerting to read that there are people planning to stay, due to limited financial resources. I make no bones about LA not being my fave place in the world, but still to see so much damage from Katrina, and to talk to people who lived through the ordeal adds another dimension.

I may not love the place, but my heart goes out to all those who are experiencing this for the second go-round.

word (i.e. god knows).

I just started reading "Eat, Pray, Love" by a lovely woman whose name escapes me right now, and I'm too lazy to go grab the book out of the other room, because god knows I'd probably get distracted and end up not entering an entry into my bliggity blog. And we all know how hard it is for me to get to this point in the first place, so let's not push it, shall we? Anyhoodle, about a million people have mentioned this book, but I've resisted attaining it because, after my traumatic -though-necessary pre-move purge [of so much lovely, lovely stuff] in Santa Barbara, I don't really want to buy things only to have to haul them around. After all, I'm still essentially homeless (though god [also] knows, this really can't last for much longer, right?), and anything I buy is yet another thing I'll need to move from 1 storage unit to another, and then eventually, someday, to some semblance of housing unit, somewhere, though god knows where, because for the life of me, I cannot bring myself to any kind of acceptance, try as I might, to the idea of living anywhere in Louisiana. Which would explain why, after practically 6 weeks in Minnesota, I'm still planning to stay for yet another 3. My point being that I'm house-sitting, and the book is here in the house, so I'm free to read it without having to purchase it. Ahem.

In the first section of "Eat, Pray, Love" (which Kathy Pope described as "really your kind of book, Angi"), the author and friends discuss the idea of finding one word to describe different cities (Rome=Sex, Stockholm=Conform, NYC=Achieve, LA=Succeed, etc.), which I thought was a fun little exercise. Like if you expanded that, and could think of a word to describe your life, or maybe the different phases of your life, which words would you choose? I used to do this with boyfriends: The one-legged Divemaster, The Malaysian, The Lobbyist, The Bartender, etc. In retrospect, it doesn't seem the best idea to attach the labels to people, actually. It's somehow really objectifying, or something, which probably explains why I no longer do it (except to distinguish one from the other, as in the case where 2 love interests have the same name, for instance.). But it really made me think, how would I describe this strange, yet seemingly very necessary, hiatus I've undertaken? Or do I need to describe it? Maybe it's better if I don't label it as one thing or the other verb, or noun. I suppose it just is. No matter how confusing and conflicting it feels.

God help me, I do not want to go back south though, not back to Louisiana, even if the best job in the world is waiting for me. I can't say I necessarily want to stay in Minne, and maybe I've just turned the whole state of LA into my personal bogey (put a little boogie in it) man. Dunno. I've been really tuned in to how lonely I've been for the past couple months- maybe even the whole time since I left 2 years ago. California was good- I had friends there, people who looked out for me, invited me to BBQs and Superbowl parties, good people I could lean on. There even were/are a few in Louisiana, but because we all work offshore, there's no guarantee that we'll be on the beach at the same time, and I don't even know where to begin looking for people to know in Louisiana. The thing is, of course, that it's not my girls (actually, this is a big part of it- none of them are girls at all, they're all men), it's not the people I've known forever. Another big realization is that I think I've entered a different part of my life from the one I was in when I made the decision to go into this line of work. I don't need to bust anybody's balls anymore; I don't need to prove anything to anyone (read: myself). I've done plenty. Really I have. I don't need to rattle off all the amazing adventures I've had, or all I've accomplished in my round-about jill-of-no-trades way. Because it's a bit like what I was talking about earlier: pigeonholing myself by applying too many labels, a sort of shield no one can ever look behind.

I sort of just want normalcy, to be able to live a normal life, where I can cook my own meals, live in my own home, and have a normal relationship with a guy of like interest/background. Normal stuff, I mean, relatively speaking, right? It's still me in here, after all. I don't want to be bored, but maybe just a bit more constancy, stability. Maybe it all just has to break down before it can be built back up. Maybe I'm just finally getting to the bottom of the pile of shit my mind has identified as the "interesting life I want to live" and getting down to what I really want, what I've really wanted all along. Because it seems to me that the stuff my mind comes up with never really gets me to where I want to be.

So maybe it's time for something else, something deeper, to start calling the shots.

love.

A few pictures to share, from the weekend:

Michaela & Paul, wedded.

the bridesmaids.

rockstars ;)

One of the best things about the wedding was meeting and getting to spend time with some of the people I've heard Mic talk about for so many years: Beth (above, with her fiance Tim and yours truly) and her sister, Lisa, both from Baltimore, were amongst my faves. Because it stands to reason that someone I've been close to for so many years also has some amazing friends I would probably also adore.

anywhere I roam.

Ha! It's been almost 2 months since my last entry. I guess I was taking a summer vacay from my bliggity-blog. Not that it's all that stressful, but I did have some stuff I was trying to figure out, and that kind of introspection is never really conducive to writing, at least not publicly.

I think I mentioned that I went back to Cali for a long-weekend type visit in early June. While visiting one of my MDT instructors, I was offered the opportunity, by a company rep who was visiting the MDT facility, to hire on with Oceaneering, a much larger offshore ROV company, based out of Louisiana. Upon my return to life and work in NOLA, I was sent out for a week to the DB16. But when the job ended earlier than expected, I was promptly placed on (unpaid) standby for a shipwreck job. Standby is job limbo: you can't really do anything except wait around for the job to go out, but there's not a ton for you to do while you wait. Here's what I did during that week.5 on the beach: I recuperated from a redux of the same bizarreness I suffered last year; I worked on evening out my tan for to look awesome in my bridesmaid dress; I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and was sort of blown away; I called Oceaneering to set up an appointment to sign papers and secure my place in one of the upcoming training sessions.

I'm not sure if it's my MN upbringing, or having worked for the nonprofits, or something instilled in me by the Benedictines, but for some reason, I always have the idea in my wee brain that working for a smaller company/entity/organization is better than working for a large corporation. Now, I'm sure in some instances this is absolutely the case. But, I think I'm mostly done with believing that. I've had far more bad experiences than good, actually, and I could enumerate them all here to prove my point, but I won't bother. The thing about working offshore, for me, is that: I'm a woman > I can't go out on some/many jobs (due to lack of sleeping accomodation) > small company has limited jobs > I can't go out on any of these > big company has more jobs > I can work more. Also big company offers training, whereas small company offers... not so much training. Strange that I should feel more invisible at a small company than at a larger one, no?

Anyhoo. 2 weeks ago I quit SeaTrepid. 7 weeks from now I'll start training with Oceaneering. In the meanwhile, I'm in MN hanging out and enjoying the last of the summer, which I've been missing for the past couple years.