gras fotos

I was going to upload Mardi Gras photos with the 101 in 1001 February roundup but I decided they deserve their own post.

First, I need you to play this in the background. I heard this song at least 10 times while walking 100s of blocks all over the city, and I never failed to start dancing.

The night of Endymion was miserable and rainy. Richie lives very close to Canal and Carrollton, so even though we were without rain gear, we thought we'd just run down the street and get some ponchos. We ended up taking refuge on the porch of an insurance company while waiting for the rain to calm down. Endymion ended up being great though--we got drunk at Richie's job, met some nice people and the rain stopped about 3 floats in.

Some friends we made while parading. Two of them were in Box of Wine and hooked us up with copious amounts of vin when they passed, since we shared so much of our booze with them at parades. This photo was taken at Hermes, right after I insisted everyone take a celebratory shot from the bottle of Jack Daniels in my bag. Like a LADY.

 

L to R; Paul S., self, Suz, Jesse. On Sunday, My friend Susan, her boyfriend Jesse, and Jesse's roommate, Paul, came into town for their first Mardi Gras ever. We had a long day--65 blocks of walking (yes, I counted them), LOTS of alcohol and  4 parades (Okeanos, Mid-City, Thoth, Bacchus). They enjoyed it. This was the day I got hit in the face twice with beads. Once was at Okeanos, when someone threw some giant beads that hit me so hard in the mouth that I cut the inside of my upper and lower lips. I worried it had chipped my falsie tooth, but luckily, things seem to be okay there. Later, someone threw a handful of beads at a throwback float and they hit me square in the side of the head and left little goose eggs on my forehead. This was also the day that Ashley got engaged.

My parents came in on Lundi Gras. This is us at Orpheus. I drank pretty much the entire contents of a bottle of Crown that evening (some of which is still in that cup I'm holding). My outfit here is a variation on what I wore to most parades: leggings or tights, 10-year old Chucks (seriously, those things have been through so much: various Mardi Gras seasons, every music festival I've ever attended, plus being my go-to tennis shoes), tutu, top, thrift store military jacket. This night ended badly--I got sick due to a potent combo of alcohol, little food, and 5 hour energy drinks. I had a bad anxiety attack later, made worse by my darling little brother, who didn't show up at my house until 7am (without responding to my multiple texts about where he was and if he needed me to come get him). But the day was good until that point.

Downtown, right after Zulu. I was in an AWFUL mindset at this point: very little sleep, all friends except Matt totally bailed on going to the parade, still not feeling well, parents disappeared. But a super nice lady at Zulu gave me one of the many coconuts she caught and her gesture was a small bit of loveliness in what ended up being a fairly shitty day otherwise.