57

 There have been 57 carjackings/armed robberies so far this year in New Orleans.  This year being 2022 and today being the 17th day of the year.

Our population is not even 400,000.  Our murder rate is higher than pre-Katrina.  

But this isn't even what is pushing me out of New Orleans.  It's the climate change.  Ida was a huge eye-opener.  I love this place and its people but it's time for me to jump ship like a rat while the housing prices are still high (as soon as I can, lots of factors swimming there like my friend's cat dying of old age, student loan payoff, two years post last house sale, etc.).  

I still don't have a fucking roof and I'm still living in post-storm shambles that tap my cognitive load heavily, but hopefully we'll move forward soon.

I'm digging in on the PhD.  I've asked exams to be set for February 18, and now I have to read about 30 academic tomes. OK, read 12 and reread 18.  It's a lot.  I'm stressed.  But I want to get done.  

And so I have to reorganize how I spend my time.  At some point I got used to a life of leisure, with time to binge TV shows and endlessly scroll Facebook.  Those days are over.  It's time to focus.

This morning I got up early and prepped dinner - chopping onions and finding the good parts of old jalapenos, cutting butter into cornmeal and scrounging into the back of the fridge to find the oldest yogurt to mix in.  Of course I'll have to rethink cooking again, no more hours available so I need quick and easy and tasty and healthy.  Though I'll carbo load as I always do when facing mental challenges - my brain needs the carbs.  

I wanted to bike to work today but I feel dragging, so maybe tomorrow.  I didn't sleep well and there are work stressors that I need to learn to leave behind and not let it take up bandwidth.  All I have bandwidth for now is my exams.  I fantasize of quitting my job and just studying, knowing that this is the last time I'll do this and how much I've enjoyed that in the past.  I really like full-time study.  I looked longingly at the bicycle on the rack at the library of my university this weekend, thinking how I would like a study carrel and time to just be a student.  Of course the finances and logistics of that aren't entirely feasible right now.

And now I go to work.