(No poissons d'avril here. This is one of the many years I'm not pulling any pranks on the 91st day of the year.)

So sorry I've been away.

Been really, really busy with work, and right now, packing.

(Actually, it's my wife & mom packing now: I'm at work until 4:30 PM.)

It's an odd feeling.

When I moved here in February 2005, I was all "country boy coming to the city." This was where I was going to make my fortune; this is where my life was leading me. After Katrina, 6 months later, this city became something of which I was proud, and protective. Rebuilding this place, and defending this place, was suddenly important to me.

Then life continued to happen. I had the opportunity to state my intentions to Amanda. We became so wonderfully attached, there was no way I couldn't propose. We got married.

And then the rug was pulled out from under my seemingly steady job.

I still should've seen it coming, but our train still jumped the tracks. God provided another job, and another track. This one leads to Chicago. Illinois, one of those blue states of which I'm glad I'm not a resident...oh wait.

New Orleans is a special place. Louisiana is an amazing state, even if it's always 48, 49, or 50 in the ranking of certain key figures (like education). (Good thing Mississippi obliges us by being the 49, 50, & 49 to us.) If you've ever heard the jazz song "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans", if you've ever heard it here in the Crescent City, then you know that it's more than just a song: it's a different way of life that's just so difficult to describe, I can only exhort one to visit and pass a season here: anyone that has ever visited at length knows that the notion of abandoning this city is nonsensical.

I'm not one for patronizing Home Box Office, but oh, how I want to see Treme when it premieres the weekend after Easter. Knowing that my work will bring us back towards the end of next year doesn't lessen the sting of leaving family, friends, a church, and a city.

I might get another entry posted, but it'd be a lyric, nothing more. Next stop, Morris, Illinois.

-KIE