Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans,
And miss it each night and day?
I know I’m not wrong, the feeling’s gettin’ stronger
The longer I stay away. – Eddie DeLange and Louis Alter
We try to get down to New Orleans once a year to visit friends, stock up on groceries we can’t get elsewhere and go to a few of our favorite restaurants. I even use the opportunity to have my annual checkup, because I like my gynecologist and saw no real reason to try to find a new whore-friendly one here. Usually, we go near the end of January or beginning of February, but last year my husband’s schedule was such a mess we couldn’t make it until August…which made exchanging Christmas presents a bit strange (but still fun).
As in August, he had business in New Orleans this week, which means we get to stay in a nice hotel near Canal Street on his company’s tab. So we drove down Sunday and will be returning Friday; I’ll bet you didn’t even notice I was gone. See, I’ve been pre-posting all of my columns since mid-autumn; I find it’s a lot more convenient, because then if the internet goes down, or I somehow get distracted in the morning, or I have to drive my husband to the airport, or we decide to run off to New Orleans for a week, everything still publishes on time and y’all aren’t disappointed. The only drawback is that if I have to shift columns to make room for a more pressing item, it’s a colossal pain because I have to change links and everything. For example, “2011 in Review” was originally scheduled for the 11th, but was bumped from the spot by “Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark” because the “one year ago today” connection was too good to pass up. That meant displacing “Rhinoceros” from the 14th to the 21st and “Q & A (January 2012)” from the 21st to the 23rd; fortunately I hadn’t gone any further than that yet. Whew!
One year ago today I wrote about a famous New Orleans madam in “Josie Arlington”, then last September I wrote about another one in “Lulu White”. Both of those ladies’ bordellos were found in “Storyville”, the city’s famous red-light district; many of the refined Creole ladies who plied their trade there were the descendants of “left-handed marriages”, as explained in “Plaçage”. Creole prostitutes are so much a part of the city’s history that I’ve shared two songs about them (“New Orleans Ladies” and “Lady Marmalade”) with you, and the very first song in my very first hooker song column (namely “Fancy”) was about yet another New Orleanian fille de joie.