Free Bread
This is something I wrote a long time ago (9-24-02), but I really like it and I tweaked it a little recently. It's a quaint story of love, theivery, and New Orleans living.
But first, a key to terms you probably don't know:
Newman - The very expensive private uptown high school I went to on full scholarship cause my broke ass couldn't afford it.
Grapes of Wrath - A play taken from the Steinbeck novel that I was a lead in.
The Quarter - Short for "The French Quarter," or the oldest part of New Orleans; the part you always see on TV. Also called the Vieux Carré (Old Square).
Le Petit - Short for "Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré." It's a small community theatre that puts on mostly children's productions.
Beignet - A French doughnut which consits of deep fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar. Made famous at the Café du Monde.
La Madeleine - A French bakery next to the St. Louis Cathedral.
St. Louis Cathedral - The oldest continually operating church in the country, made a basilica by Pope Paul VI in 1964.
So here it is, published for the first time. Yay.
The best day of my life is so difficult to identify, not because of the abundance of absolutely astounding days, but rather, the lack thereof. Now, the worst day of my life would be much easier to find; at least then I would have a handful of days to narrow the selection down from.
This is not to say, of course, that my life is an endless cesspool or sadness and despair; the truth is far from it, actually. It just so happens that there seem to have been a greater proliferation of days which royally sucked from start to finish that there were those that were awesome all the way through. It seems to me that there were a lot of really great times in the last 17 years, 10 months and 21 days, but rarely did they cover the expanse of an entire 24 hours (or even just the 14-18 waking ones).
I mean, I could come across and say something trite and cliché like, “The day I was accepted to Newman,” but that would be a lie. Even though I was enthralled to get in, find the money, etc, I knew that I would. And it was something that was realized over the course of months, not hours or days.
Or I could say, “The day I made the football team,” but that didn’t really mean very much because Newman doesn’t cut and I was ineligible and couldn’t play at the time, besides. Or I could come up with, “The first time I was the lead in a play,” which was actually pretty cool, but I do it all the time, and the first time was a relatively minor production.
I could join the bandwagon and say, “The best day of my life was my wedding day,” but being 17 and never having been married, that probably wouldn’t work either.
So, I’ve been thinking (Almost, you might say, like Jesus, when he went off into the hills to… sorry, Grapes of Wrath flashback), and as best as I can figure, the best day of my life was nothing like any of the above. It was special, yes, and great, but nothing monumental happened. It may not even be the best, but not even a year has transpired yet and it comes to mind readily.
It was exactly 10 months and 21 days ago (November 3rd, 2001 to be precise), and I was deeply in love. It was the kind of love you can’t even comprehend - so enveloping, so consuming, so insidious that it dominates your every thought. Resistance was futile, as it were. She was wonderful, she was my best friend, and she was clueless. Ah, now there’s an epic tragedy as old as time. I did tell her eventually, but that’s a story for another day - one better suited to the alternate topic previously discussed.
Actually, I meant to. That was the plan for the day. We’d been meaning to get together for some time to just bum around the quarter. I knew that we’d be spending the entire day together and that would provide the perfect opportunity for me to strike. Unfortunately, I’m not that courageous and was unable to bring myself to screw up what was shaping up to be a near perfect day.
We’d been together nearly every weekend for the past month or two - be it at the movies, the zoo, a party or a Saints game, but this was going to be the day that was just ours. As her birthday present to me, she planned a day out, start to finish. First, we would go see a play at Le Petit which featured a mutual friend; then, we’d walk about the quarter enjoying ourselves, eating beignets, checking out shops, drinking coffee, and sniping the free bread from La Madeleine. Later that night we would meet her parents for dinner at some quaint little hole in the wall and we would make our way over to the Cathedral for a night mass - an overall new experience for the both of us.
It all went beautifully according to plan. The play was decent at best, but our friend did a nice job at his part. I bought her a balloon animal in Jackson square. (She said her mother would never buy her one when she was little, calling them “a waste of money.”) It was a flower actually, but I’m not sure “balloon plant” has the same ring to it. I came away with three angry post-9/11 T-shirts, a bowl of gumbo, a cup of coffee, three beignets, and more free bread than any man should ever have, between La Madeleine and mass.
The whole time I was partially pre-occupied with finding the right time to tell her how wonderful I thought she was, but I never really let it bother me. I just went with it, had a good time, and enjoyed the company of the woman I loved. When it was over, I went home, lied in bed, stared at the ceiling for a while (undoubtedly with some stupid grin on my face) and then went to sleep.
Nothing monumental happened. Ok, yes, it was my first mass in the St. Louis Cathedral, so you can stick to that as the day’s pillar of greatness if you wish, but that’s not what the day was about. I only know I was happy from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. Not that that’s all together too uncommon, but this day, I spent that happiness with another person who shared it, and that, I think, is all anyone can ask for.
But first, a key to terms you probably don't know:
Newman - The very expensive private uptown high school I went to on full scholarship cause my broke ass couldn't afford it.
Grapes of Wrath - A play taken from the Steinbeck novel that I was a lead in.
The Quarter - Short for "The French Quarter," or the oldest part of New Orleans; the part you always see on TV. Also called the Vieux Carré (Old Square).
Le Petit - Short for "Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré." It's a small community theatre that puts on mostly children's productions.
Beignet - A French doughnut which consits of deep fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar. Made famous at the Café du Monde.
La Madeleine - A French bakery next to the St. Louis Cathedral.
St. Louis Cathedral - The oldest continually operating church in the country, made a basilica by Pope Paul VI in 1964.
So here it is, published for the first time. Yay.
The best day of my life is so difficult to identify, not because of the abundance of absolutely astounding days, but rather, the lack thereof. Now, the worst day of my life would be much easier to find; at least then I would have a handful of days to narrow the selection down from.
This is not to say, of course, that my life is an endless cesspool or sadness and despair; the truth is far from it, actually. It just so happens that there seem to have been a greater proliferation of days which royally sucked from start to finish that there were those that were awesome all the way through. It seems to me that there were a lot of really great times in the last 17 years, 10 months and 21 days, but rarely did they cover the expanse of an entire 24 hours (or even just the 14-18 waking ones).
I mean, I could come across and say something trite and cliché like, “The day I was accepted to Newman,” but that would be a lie. Even though I was enthralled to get in, find the money, etc, I knew that I would. And it was something that was realized over the course of months, not hours or days.
Or I could say, “The day I made the football team,” but that didn’t really mean very much because Newman doesn’t cut and I was ineligible and couldn’t play at the time, besides. Or I could come up with, “The first time I was the lead in a play,” which was actually pretty cool, but I do it all the time, and the first time was a relatively minor production.
I could join the bandwagon and say, “The best day of my life was my wedding day,” but being 17 and never having been married, that probably wouldn’t work either.
So, I’ve been thinking (Almost, you might say, like Jesus, when he went off into the hills to… sorry, Grapes of Wrath flashback), and as best as I can figure, the best day of my life was nothing like any of the above. It was special, yes, and great, but nothing monumental happened. It may not even be the best, but not even a year has transpired yet and it comes to mind readily.
It was exactly 10 months and 21 days ago (November 3rd, 2001 to be precise), and I was deeply in love. It was the kind of love you can’t even comprehend - so enveloping, so consuming, so insidious that it dominates your every thought. Resistance was futile, as it were. She was wonderful, she was my best friend, and she was clueless. Ah, now there’s an epic tragedy as old as time. I did tell her eventually, but that’s a story for another day - one better suited to the alternate topic previously discussed.
Actually, I meant to. That was the plan for the day. We’d been meaning to get together for some time to just bum around the quarter. I knew that we’d be spending the entire day together and that would provide the perfect opportunity for me to strike. Unfortunately, I’m not that courageous and was unable to bring myself to screw up what was shaping up to be a near perfect day.
We’d been together nearly every weekend for the past month or two - be it at the movies, the zoo, a party or a Saints game, but this was going to be the day that was just ours. As her birthday present to me, she planned a day out, start to finish. First, we would go see a play at Le Petit which featured a mutual friend; then, we’d walk about the quarter enjoying ourselves, eating beignets, checking out shops, drinking coffee, and sniping the free bread from La Madeleine. Later that night we would meet her parents for dinner at some quaint little hole in the wall and we would make our way over to the Cathedral for a night mass - an overall new experience for the both of us.
It all went beautifully according to plan. The play was decent at best, but our friend did a nice job at his part. I bought her a balloon animal in Jackson square. (She said her mother would never buy her one when she was little, calling them “a waste of money.”) It was a flower actually, but I’m not sure “balloon plant” has the same ring to it. I came away with three angry post-9/11 T-shirts, a bowl of gumbo, a cup of coffee, three beignets, and more free bread than any man should ever have, between La Madeleine and mass.
The whole time I was partially pre-occupied with finding the right time to tell her how wonderful I thought she was, but I never really let it bother me. I just went with it, had a good time, and enjoyed the company of the woman I loved. When it was over, I went home, lied in bed, stared at the ceiling for a while (undoubtedly with some stupid grin on my face) and then went to sleep.
Nothing monumental happened. Ok, yes, it was my first mass in the St. Louis Cathedral, so you can stick to that as the day’s pillar of greatness if you wish, but that’s not what the day was about. I only know I was happy from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. Not that that’s all together too uncommon, but this day, I spent that happiness with another person who shared it, and that, I think, is all anyone can ask for.