Characters from New Orleans

Heather and I took our honeymoon in New Orleans. We met some people.

Keel: Named for the central beam of a ship's construction, Keel was as centered as his name suggests. He was our tattoo artist, and demonstrated extraordinary levels of calm as we texted back and forth over a few days of our trip, sending artwork and suggestions back and forth, and as I fainted (keeled over, even) in the midst of the process. "He's cool," is what he said to Heather, "He'll be back in a minute or two." Then, when his co-worker turned Keel's music back on (doom/sludge/stoner rock, as he described it) he said, "Yo, this man passed out because there was no music. Thankfully, I was sticking him with a needle, so he came around."

The drag queen at The Country Club in Bywater: This story makes more sense if you realize that The Country Club is not a country club set on acres of green golf course, but an old New Orleans mansion in the Bywater neighborhood with a restaurant/bar inside and a pool out back, free to club members, available to others for a small fee. Heather and I swam there, had lunch there, and, ultimately, were accosted by this flamboyant woman, who said "Are you Amish?" This allowed me to discuss Anabaptist history, a discourse with which I am very comfortable. "You're so exotic," she said, "Can I see your chest?" "I'll have to ask my wife," I said.

The bartender at The Country Club in Bywater: He looked on with bemused exasperation during this whole episode, and I realized that the drag queen must be a regular there, like many of my regulars at the bookstore. I wanted to talk to the bartender, but was too busy asking Heather if I could show my chest to a drag queen. "I'm from another world," she said as Heather and I headed back to the pool, "really. I am."

The mystery couple: We actually learned their names at breakfast on day one, but quickly forgot. They had the vibe of those wanting to be forgotten; not the reserved, painfully shy kind of forgotten; they made conversation, and seemed interesting, but seemed to be hiding something behind their small talk. "They're having an affair, " said Heather. "Maybe they're here hunting for treasure in the B&B and they don't want anyone to know," I suggested.

The mystery couple's strange acquaintance: A young guy, younger than Heather and myself, joined the late-middle-aged mystery couple one night at Maison. We were further back in the shadows, eating po'boys and watching a young funk band when we saw them enter. We didn't want to see them, and they didn't want to see us, and before the show was over, the strange acquaintance had left them to their own devices.

P.S. See a selection of photos from our trip here. None of the folks above are pictured.