true grit

driving into new orleans on i-10 westbound, i was shocked. for miles, the devistation wrought by hurricane katrina is still apparent. no--it is in-your-face, confrontational. literally, i had to look at shops, box stores, strip malls: all desolate, torn apart, littered with debris. suburb after subrb, street after street, house after house: empty, deserted. the only sign of life were the rows of fema trailers, lined up like anemic little soldiers, waiting for the next command.

the city is crawling from the effects of the storm. a few nights ago, i was unable to get food from a little diner. "we're on a shift change now. the kitchen has to be restocked and cleaned before we can even begin to take orders," i was told by the man who usually took orders from behind the counter. workers are needed everywhere, and when they aren't available, the customers simply have to wait.

the judicial system is practically at a standstill, with months and months of backlogged cases clogging the the judges work, allowing only a painfully drudging process to continue. law enforcement continues, somehow, but it's hard to believe that, when hardly any sign of a cop's existence is readily available.

still, despite it's fight and struggle to continue, this city down south manages. it manages to live on and even maintain its identy and its attitude. even if it's reputation is worn and rusted by the storm, it's character is still the gritty, rough-and-tumble place it has always been. and i mean that in a hip, organically trendy way that you can only find in here. a place like none other, dirty and fun (and i'm not talkin' about the french quarter), i like new orleans.