Aside from Wikipedia, I read very little online. I used to get lost in Wikipedia but I now only use to look something up. I have developed an immunity to its rabbit hole charms. I don’t read anything on Substack except The Girl Can’t Help It, but, because you are reading this on Substack, they send me links to things they think I might be interested in. I am usually not.
I was, however, intrigued by the title of this little ditty: "When Did You Last Hang Out?” I clicked the link. The unexamined life is not worth living.
I have to admit that I am hanging out with the chickens in my back garden as I write this. I had one eye on them as I read this lady’s essay about hanging out, so I was only half paying attention. She makes hanging out seem something rare.
In New Orleans, all we do is hang out.
The texture of life is different in New Orleans.
Even when people are working, they are just hanging out. Even the plumber. The plumber just happens to be doing it with a wrench. This is why it takes forever for anything to get done here, everybody is just hanging out.
Wanna talk about it?
“We are going to have the best Mardi Gras ever next year. I hear this phrase several times a week.
People in New Orleans always have the big picture in mind, something more than the task at hand. Everything its place.
In New Orleans, first things come first. Second things come second. Third things can wait until tomorrow because it is time to go hang out someplace else. Time is fungible in New Orleans.
In St. Bernard Parish, the first order of business when you are dealing with a Yat is, “Where y’at?” In Orleans Parish, the first order of business is, “How’s your momanem?”
Living in New Orleans we are aware that we are part of something special. We all do what we can to survive. This is why we go out of our way to stay interconnected. It is why we have different values than the outside world. It is why we have our own language.
Live in New Orleans long enough and the city will drive you crazy. The slow-moving uncontrolled chaos is impossible to behold without awe. You may go back to the real world after living here for five years, but you will be a changed person.
Some people thinks it takes five years to become an Orleanian. I do not think there is a set date. Unless you grow up here, you have no pedigree, so that is already one strike against you. Also, nobody knows what high school you went to. Strike two.
Cranky Yankee that I am, with a heart carved from hoarfrost, my heart melts a little when a native refers to me as a fellow Orleanian. If I have earned it, it is only by osmosis, which, of course, is the art of flanerie. My usual means of research, like Joseph Mitchell’s, is to just hang out. Like an ex-pat in Casablanca, I have gone native for good or for ill. It is nice to be a pillar of the community.
Vincent, who is dago Creole to his core, graduated from Jesuit. I love it when he and I can talk about something that happened in New Orleans during the Age of Sail. This is how far back things are still relevant in New Orleans time. The past is still present.
We live in a city of picturesque decay.
I am going to talk more after the paywall, in the meantime, I would like you to share this post with your friends. I do not have any friends to speak of, only people I hang out with. In New Orleans, there are no strangers, everyone is a friend you have just met.