Mornings and St. Vincent's

Of all the things that have surprised me since my move to New Orleans, becoming a morning person is probably the biggest stunner of all. Ever since I can remember, I have fallen asleep (at the earliest) around 2 or 3 a.m. When I started working overnight shifts at hotels, that changed to when the sun came up. It was perfect for me. My mind and body were more active and creative in the dark, so even when I wasn't working I would either be at home or Denny's writing until the sun rose. After I had kids, I would just stay awake until after I saw them off to school. Otherwise I would be completely nonfunctional as I tried to put lunches and outfits together, make sure they had all their homework and everything else they needed for the day.

Now, thanks to my job at the coffee shop, my body has gotten used to the alarm waking me at 5:30 in the morning. To the point that I tend to wake up between 4:30 and 5:00 without even waiting for the alarm. And not only am I awake, but I am FUNCTIONAL!!

It truly amazes me.

Of course this means that most nights I'm asleep by 10:00. I always thought that was for children and old people, but since I'm neither, I have been forced to reevaluate that opinion. With BS being an absolute night owl, I have also learned how to sleep with light and noise whereas previously I needed pure darkness and not a sound in order to fall asleep. Just goes to show just how adaptable a human being can be :)

Ah! St.Vincent's Guesthouse. There is so much to say about my stay there. If I were any good at fictionalizing reality, it provided enough fodder in my 6 1/2 month stay to make at least a 10 book series - if not more.

To start off, the theory behind what they do there is very commendable. When I was looking to move to New Orleans, I spent a few months looking online for jobs and living accommodations. One ad I came across on Craigslist was "Room in exchange for work." It sounded too good to be true (yes, I considered that it might be a scam), so I sent an email from one of my little used email accounts. Imagine my surprise when I not only received an email back offering me a job and a place to live! The rules set up are that you work 28 hours a week (in housekeeping where I worked, that was 4 hours a day 7 days a week) without pay in exchange for a hotel room. Anything you worked over that 28 hours you were paid minimum wage.

For someone with no money in a city where they know no one, it seemed like a dream come true.  And I won't say it was all bad. But it sure wasn't what I was led to believe.

1) The place was absolutely infested with roaches. I understand that cities have roaches, and subtropical climates have more than usual. But good lord!! I would be cleaning a room (took about 20 minutes per room) and would see at least 50 of them. And no bug spray in the world would get rid of them. They were freaking HUGE!

2) Can we say mold everywhere? And not just in visible places. It was inside the walls. Of course when the building is in such a state of disrepair that vines were growing through the walls and ceilings..Well what do you expect?

3) Even when we worked well over the 28 hours a week, we never saw any money. Three weeks running, I worked 35 hours a week at my paying job and 40-50 at STV and never saw a penny for it. But they get away with it because everyone there has no money and nowhere else to go. As I mentioned in my last post, BS was fired for demanding what they owed him for 114 hours of overtime. So when they didn't pay me, I was afraid to say anything at all. I was providing a place to live for the two of us while we both worked at paying jobs and tried to save enough money to get an apartment.

4) They really aren't very careful about who they hire. At least half the employees are drug addicts. Stuff from the guests and the staff is always going missing and ending up at the pawn shop down the street. (My laptop was stolen while there.) About $300 of BS's money also went missing while there.

5) Hurricane Isaac. That was a serious eye-opener. I knew pretty much every room on the top floors leaked. The roof is in an awful state and just gets worse because the owner won't pay to get it redone properly. But during Isaac, all of us employees were kind of stunned at how many parts of the roof collapsed - frequently depositing plaster, wood and shingles on top of a sleeping guest. YET THE GUESTS WERE NOT MOVED TO SAFE ROOMS!! Really? Are you kidding me? The poor guest in room 11. The entire ceiling of his bathroom collapsed and the stuff from the bathroom above his dropped down. And they just cleaned up the floor and left the hole between the floors.

On the other hand, I met some wonderful people there. BS is one. Miss Elouise (housekeeping supervisor) is another. I have decided I want to be her when I grow up :) Ross and Jerry and Brida and Levi and Pat. All of them great people. But the owner has a habit of firing the good, intelligent workers and keeping the desperate ones who won't ask too many questions.

I also met a lot of characters who will definitely be making their way into my work in one way or another - Frank and his dog Leroy, Jerry who knows everyone in the Irish Channel, Lenny and his constant perverted jokes, Heather (a crack whore) and the man she claimed was her husband who literally had no chin, Bridget of the cool bike and her boyfriend Julian, Devon (aka Jesus), Laura from Holland who waited until her fiancé joined her here in the States before dumping him and telling him to go home. The list goes on forever.

Of course I've met plenty of characters in the Quarter as well. There's the sweet old black man I see at the bus stop every day who never calls me by name, instead he calls me "the fine white girl in the white shoes"; the street performer (juggling) who keeps asking me to lie on the street and let him juggle knives over my body (yeah, I really don't think so); and the little old man who works at the restaurant next to my coffee shop who when I ask how he is he always answers, "Having a wonderful day now that you're part of it, beautiful."

Is it any wonder I love this city?

New Beginnings?

Yes, there is a question mark there in the title. You see, I've had so many new beginnings in my life that I'm actually getting kind of sick of them. Though for the most part this one has been better than many of the others.

First of all I found a city that I love. I felt at home in New Orleans from the first moment. A far cry from Annapolis which I hated as soon as I set eyes on it. Most people who know me are stunned by the fact that I survived my first summer here. (I am known for loving the cold and snow.) I can't say that I loved the heat, but I got used to it. And of course it was a fairly mild summer, or so I'm told. I am looking forward to their version of winter though :)

One of the best things about New Orleans to me is that it is a city of contradictions. The old and the new (and don't forget the new that has to look old), different architectural styles right next door to each other (not separated by neighborhoods), there's city and country, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, clean and dirty. The list could go on forever, but I think you get the gist of it. I'm sure a lot of people in other cities would say the same thing about those others cities. They might be right, but I've never seen, never felt it in any other city I've been to. New Orleans truly has something for everyone if they take the time to look past the tourist traps in the Quarter (and totally skip Bourbon Street).

So New Orleans is now home, and I have a feeling that even if I leave some day, I'll be back.

Second, I opened one of my documents today for the first time in ages. Almost a year really. Things were so hectic from last spring until now - plus my laptop was stolen with all the newer versions of the writings I had been working on (yes, I know - very bad to not save in many different places - lesson learned). So writing has been nonexistent for over a year.

But today I did it. And honestly I'm kind of sorry I did. Pretty much everything I've ever written I looked at today and thought,"Really?? You considered this worth your time?" I'm not saying it's all crap, but even with extensive work, I doubt even 10% of it will ever be worthy of querying.

Even though I sound annoyed by it, it been very beneficial reading over everything. For starters, it's really helped me realize where I want to focus my writing. I used to be all over the map YA (sci fi, fantasy, romance, paranormal, contemporary), chick lit, romance, mystery, erotica. You name a genre and I guarantee you I had at least one project if not more going in it. But one thing rereading everything did was it showed me what I really want to write - edgy YA for those teens who are truly on the brink of adulthood but are not quite ready to move on to books where the MC is 10 to 15 or more years older than them. I want my readers old enough that I don't have to censor myself so much in my writing (I have young teen kids. I know there's stuff I don't want them reading so why would I put it in my books?).

The other great thing about this whole new beginning was meeting my current roommate, whom I will call Bald &Sexy (or BS for short). Not completely bald, but it works as a pseudonym. I met him my second day in New Orleans. He also was staying and working at St. Vincent's Guesthouse (and that whole saga is a post of its own). He was one of those people I just clicked with. And when the owner of the Guesthouse fired him because he demanded the money he was owed for his work, I was devastated. Thanks to one of the guests in town for Jazz Fest with her husband, I made a choice that changed my time here in New Orleans a great deal.

See, one thing all the people living and working at St. Vincent's had in common is that we were all broke and had nowhere else to go. We worked as hotel employees in exchange for our room. So when BS was fired, he lost his home with it. Irene (the guest I mentioned) convinced me to go after him and not leave him alone. I followed her advice that afternoon, and we spent the rest of the day and a good portion of the evening in the Quarter. BS has lived here on and off for the past 15 or so years and showed me the city as only a local could (notice I say local and not native - big difference). At about 1:00 a.m. I knew I had to get back and go to sleep, but I was terrified for him. He had nowhere to sleep and no money. Having spent my share of time homeless, I didn't want that for him. Already he was one of my best friends and you don't turn your back on friends. So instead of letting him sleep in the park, I snuck him back on hotel property and into my room. That was on April 7th this year. We've been roommates ever since.

Hurricane Isaac is how we got found out though. Hotel management found out he was living in my room and I got fired. Believe me when I say it's the best thing that happened to both of us. Now we work, we have a real apartment, and just on Tuesday we got a dog. And I'm back to writing.

So maybe new beginnings aren't as bad as I was beginning to think they were. When I break it all down like that, it seems like this one is actually pretty kick ass :D