I lived in New York City for 4 years when I was going to school, basically acting like a crazy, tattooed, pierced art student on a spree. When I saw the Towers falling, it felt like someone had cut the arms off my best friend.

I grew up in Houston, TX, just a few hours west on I-10. My great-grandparents were old Garden District residents, he was a real estate developer. They moved to Galveston to recreate the beauty that he had helped to create in the Crescent City. My great Uncle Dub and Aunt Haydee lived in the French Quarter during prohibition. She was from a well-to-do family in the Garden District as well. He wooed her and wooed her, so in love with his party partner in crime, even converted to Catholicism to be her husband. Aunt Haydee has never missed a Mardi Gras at 92 years old.

New Orleans, it’s culture, art, decadence, decay, and mannerisms were a huge part of my childhood. I love the old houses, the transom windows, the shaded porches and humidity. For whatever it’s worth, I was married at The Columns Hotel on St. Charles. Our family mausoleum is down there. One of my very dearest friends in the world has, or rather had, a beautiful shotgun just off Magazine that she renovated herself and I remember every step of her sweat and worry over her labor of love.

My point is, I may not have been born there, but I have always felt more at home there than I ever have in Houston. I’ve told every friend I’ve ever taken to New Orleans that "I feel like that is my home town". So now I’m sitting, watching and reading just like I did on September 11th, 2001, looking at a city that has always been a good friend to me, a city I love deeply, watching it go through so much abuse and turmoil. It breaks my heart and there’s not a whole lot I can do except process what I see and try to convince myself that it actually is real.