So Much Pain...

New Orleans is a place close to my heart, 'though I have never been there. It is home to the Cajun people and culture...the heart of American Jazz...Anne Rice and her vampires...stately Garden District Mansions...The French Quarter...Rue Bourbon...Historic above ground tombs and beautiful architecture...or at least it was.

New Orleans was also the home of Loyola University, my first choice college, where I planned to study music. My lifelong dream has been to open a nightclub on Rue Bourbon, where I would sing each night. I started collecting vampire items in high school for the vampire museum I was going to have on the second floor of the club, then live on the third floor where I could look out on my adopted home each night from my balcony.

I have fought back tears so many times in the last few days...there is more pain in my heart than I can express. All the images of suffering, the scope of this massive loss, feels like more than anyone should be expected to bear. Hurricanes are a fact of life here in the south, but the horror and destruction in Katrina's aftermath is nothing I ever thought I'd see.

I am joining with multitudes of bloggers in the relief effort. I have chosen the American Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/ Please, donate whatever you can. If you cannot afford the listed pre-determined donation amounts, please call them at 1-800-Help-Now. No amount is too little.

"I got the ways and means
To New Orleans
I'm going down by the river
Where it's warm and green
I'm gonna have drink, and walk around
I got a lot to think about oh yeah"

Concrete Blonde "Bloodletting"