"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The Fourth Amendment is not so often quoted as the fighting words of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

but it is, in its own way, as strong as the First.

If you looked closely, one could see the echoes of stubble tracing a faint shadow of pattern-baldness that meandered from ear, to crown, to ear. His eyes didn't always match the laughter in his voice, but when they did, the lines radiated, like spokes, from their corners.

When he told stories the words came out razor-sharp. Carnival patois, to match the oversized, indifferently polished black clown shoes he wore. I didn't know how much of his story to believe; after all, he was a balloon artist hustling tourists next to Café du Monde.

We left Friday morning, just after six a.m. I awakened, groggy from fitful sleep, and dashed around the house doing errands in a stream of fogged consciousness; as I was putting out the trash for pickup, Kat and Sean arrived. We packed, we left.

The second half-hour of a long road trip is always somewhat disappointing. The rush and crush is over; you've left, and there's nothing to get excited about except the mind-numbing expanse of open road. Six and a half hours of highway driving to get to New Orleans.

Movies can make me think about many things: my life, my past, my future, my actions, my dreams. Every now and then one comes along that makes me rethink my actions and makes me doubt myself. I watched EDtv this evening and came away more disquieted than the premise of the movie would normally suggest.

Domesticat is my outlet, my creative energy, my place to write and think and design in peace. Yet I make it publicly viewable. I don't actively encourage people to come to the site; I mention it to people if the situation and conversation warrants it, but I do not force people to come here.

Yet…since I started the site thirteen months ago, I've watched quietly as my site hits went up every month. The first time I got queasy and a bit nervous was when I realized that people other than my close, immediate, living-here-in-town friends were reading what I wrote.

In attempts to imitate my walk and talk, there are two proper facial-expressions to assume while shopping: the absent-minded-professor look, and the kamikaze-shopping-trip look. I tend to favor the former; it requires less effort, and people don't glare at an absent-minded professor as a twentysomething power-shopping for groceries in fifteen minutes or less.

When in doubt, take the jeep.

I've been going on a sonic binge of David Gray lately. I'm finding that the more I listen to his album White Ladder, the more I'm impressed with what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing—how to describe? It's rare to encounter an album that that wears its soul as a badge. All albums, novels, songs, and poetry are about creativity and expression, but it is much rarer to come across a piece of work that proclaims, as deeply and as intrinsically as warp and weft, that this particular creation is the result of an artist putting the totality of their creativity into a piece of work.

It's a particular sound and smell, that totality, that is a hair's-breadth away from desperation. It's a completeness, a frustration, a lack of holding back, which shows in everything from words to instrumentation.