Is this still Wonderland?

I'm not feeling so much like Alice anymore.

I know what day it is. I'm not losing everything I touch. I actually have plans beyond the next few hours. And I have an appetite for chocolate again. (Those of you who know me well won't believe I went without the stuff for more than a few hours.)

Many good things have happened to me over the last couple of days.

Constantine and I have a more permanent place to stay in Abita Springs about an hour and a half from B.R. and on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. I'm hoping that once we settle in there I can spend most of my time reporting stories from inside the city.

I'm working more normal hours now - about 8 a day rather than 15 or more.

I'll see Constantine and my pug Nero later today when they arrive in Baton Rouge. (Constantine will take his event decorating business on the road over the next couple of months to work the jobs that would have been coming to New Orleans.)

And, perhaps best of all, my cousin Debbie in Phoenix bought me an airline ticket to Arizona this weekend to attend the LSU - Ariz. St. football game that had to be moved from Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. I REALLY need to spend about five hours screaming my head off for LSU.

On another front, I've decided to go ahead and attend the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association convention in Chicago in two weeks. And I'll be on a panel discussing the storm and my experience covering it at the end of the convention Saturday afternoon.

It will be an honor, and probably therapeutic, to share some of my stories with several hundred fellow journalists. Our relatively new Louisiana chapter, which is largely based in New Orleans, could be at risk as a result of the storm and the displacement of members. I think its important for the future of the chapter that at least some of us attend the convention.

That's the latest. Thanks for listening.