I don’t think we’re in Wisconsin anymore.

Moving to Louisiana has been surprising in many ways – the obsession with crawfish, the flowers that bloom all year long, the changing of every word that ends with an “oh” sound so that it ends with “eaux” (for example, the rally cry for LSU is “Geaux Tigers!”). However, one of the strangest, most foreign things from upper-Midwest life that I could imagine was the phenomenon of the Southern Prison Rodeo.

We’d heard about the Angola Prison Rodeo since we had moved to Baton Rouge in August. In fact, we had tried to go in October and then realized that they were on Sundays, not Saturdays. We were glad we had driven out to Angola State Prison despite the date mix-up – the prison has its own Museum, which was fascinating.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola (and also referred to as “The Farm”) is a truly fascinating place. It’s one of the largest prisons in the country, and is called Angola for the plantation which once stood on the land. The prison sits on 18,000 acres of beautiful farmland, bordered on three sides by the Mississippi. Crops and livestock are raised by inmates on the rolling hills.

I make it sound idyllic, but it was a place that once ran rampant with abuse.  In the early years of the 20th century, guards were fired and replaced by inmate trustees to save money.  Conditions were so appalling that in 1952 31 inmates sliced their Achilles’ tendons in protest. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the prison was fully reformed.

This tragic history has inspired some fantastic art. Stephen King’s The Green Mile was based on life on death row in Angola in the 1930s. Numerous blues songs immortalize the prison. The films JFK, Dead Man Walking, and Monster’s Ball were all partially filmed at Angola. In fact, the prison uniform that Heath Ledger wore in the latter film is on display at the prison’s museum.  Those uniforms are the same ones that we saw when we returned to the prison on Sunday.

We went Sunday to see the Angola Prison Rodeo in person. The rodeo has been running annually since 1972, and the inmates constructed a new 7,500 seat stadium specifically for the rodeo in 2000. In addition to rodeo events, there are some carnival rides, lots of food (jambalaya, shrimp on a stick, pig cracklins [the rest of America calls them pork rinds], chili cheese fries, etc.), and a wide variety of inmate-made “hobbycrafts.” The inmates display and sell just about everything – landscape paintings, children’s shoes made of candy bar wrappers, roses intricately carved from wood, plaques featuring lacquered pictures of celebrities taken from magazines, and sturdy, beautifully-made rocking chairs.

It shocks many of my friends that live outside the South when I tell them that the prisoners themselves are the ones competing in the rodeo: the inmates, in their semi-comical black and white striped shirts, ride the bucking bulls, wrestle the steers, and gallop their horses around the arena holding the various flags that have historically flown over Louisiana. One of the most nail-biting events to watch is called “Convict Poker” – four inmates are seated in plastic chairs around a card table. The gate is opened, and a snorting, bucking bull enters the stadium. The four inmates are to remain still and seated while rodeo workers incite the bull to charge – and charge he does! By the end of the event, three of the chairs and the table were completely destroyed. The last inmate left sitting in his seat is the winner. In another event, a bull is released into the area with about 25 inmates. Each inmate is vying to remove the poker chip that has been taped between the bull’s horns. That lucky man (yes, all of the prisoners participating in the rodeo were men) wins $600.

I’ve always been kind of iffy about rodeos – the whole animal exploitation thing, and fear that the animals would be hurt. But despite a good deal of slippery mud, no animals were injured on Sunday. A few of the inmates were definitely hurt – when you mess with the bull, you get the horns – and one even left in an ambulance.

The two best parts of the rodeo were definitely the monkeys riding dogs, and leaving with a bottle of this:

Things that could be worse

1. Nutria rats. I know that those of you who didn’t immediately pop on to Google and look them up are imagining a hideous beast, like those found in the subways of New York, only larger more fearsome due to the warmth and dampness of the Louisiana bayous. I assure you, they aren’t as fearsome as you imagine. In fact, these only-slightly-insane people have a nutria as a pet. They look like miniature beavers with rat tails. The fact that they are an invasive imported rodent that are doing their part to help in the destruction of the already-disappearing Louisiana wetlands are the only thing that makes them scary. Oh, and those teeth.

2. TTC 2.0, I guess. Though I really hoped that I would never see a 9-day luteal phase again. You know, I hoped that 2 more years on the pill might provide some normalization. So much for that hope. Who wouldn’t want to get their period every three fucking weeks? Well, we all know what this means: wine. Tonight. Please.

You guys deserve it, damnit.

Here it is: the big, luscious, linger-on-your-tongue and stick-to-your-hips post you’ve been waiting for. I’ve put it off long enough.

Hi, how is everyone? The last time I posted anything of substance about my life was back in September, when I had gotten married, moved to Louisiana, and weathered a hurricane within the space of a few weeks. It has since been, umm, 7 months.

Being married to Brad fits as easily my favorite pair of flip flops. There’s a huge feeling of, “Oh, so this is how it’s supposed to be.” Knowing that I can plan our future without a moment of doubt — without always keeping an escape plan in mind (that used to involve meeting Clive Owen and moving to Bali) — is so comforting. I finally can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I adore my husband. It’s a fantastic feeling.

I also truly love living in Louisiana. Moving from Wisconsin to Louisiana was culture shock, and I’m still getting used to calling them crawfish instead of crayfish and pronouncing it praw-leen instead of pray-leen and seeing nutria rats swimming in the local lakes. But the weather alone is reason enough to love this place. It is currently 75 degrees out and breezy without a cloud in the sky. I planted my vegetables and herbs last month and my tomatoes and peppers started blooming last week. We had one day of snow in December, which caused everyone in the state to promptly freak out, cancel every public service, and go build snowmen. If it hits 50 degrees, people pull out their wool coats. It’s a foreign place, but having enjoyed one winter of it makes it harder for me to imagine ever battling a Midwestern winter again.

In February I once again became a gainfully permanently employed citizen of the United States. I’d been doing long-term temp work at a local medical company, which was financially helpful but not intensely satisfying, when the perfect job popped up exactly where I wanted to work. I’m now back in a library where I belong, making sure the public information published by our government can be accessed by its citizens. It’s a good job with good pay and good benefits, and I’m a happy girl.

Way back in . . . um . . . 2004 (OMG!) I started this blog due the remarkable stories of the infertile blogging community. Well world, I’m back. I’m here, I’m demonstrably infertile, and we are back in the conception business. Today is cycle 2, CD 14, 1 DPO. Remember all of those ridiculous acronyms?

Here goes . . .

Almost famous. Almost.

Yesterday I realized that I hadn’t blogged — hell, hadn’t even visited my blog — in far too long.

Yeah.

Maybe I should blog more often.

I know I’ve blogged about this once before, but I can’t find the post way back yonder. The sheer oddity of it has led me to blog about it once more.

Of course I am a happily married woman now, but once upon a time I was an eager young lass who enjoyed the company of various men. And strangely, many of them have, since dating me, become at least semi-famous. I take total responsibility for that. Also, more than half have since come out (or at least SHOULD HAVE come out), but I take no responsibility for that. I mean, every girl plays Barbra Streisand for their boyfriends, right?

The first of the famous was my first high school boyfriend. Good kid. Incredibly effin’ tiny — I remember at the time he was 5′6″ and weighed 115 lbs. He had a big tin of that protein powder he would make smoothies from every day. After high school, he ended up reviving the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch in regional theater, and soon after had a small guest starring role in Prison Break (after a few episodes, he was knifed in the shower). Then he went very crispy Christian and left acting to do some kind of religious films or something. Married, and straight, I guess.

Second was my second high school boyfriend. He was so very young (a freshman when I was a junior) and so very talented. Since graduating, he has performed with many regional theater companies, is a frequent performer at the Ordway in Minneapolis (that means something to you Twin Citizens), and has been in at least one commercial. Yeah, he was adorable. Gay as a maypole.

The third was a college boyfriend. I found out from Facebook that after graduation he was one of the six finalists on a network television singing talent reality show. It’s weird seeing your ex on network TV. I’m not going to go any further in describing him because I have it from the other horse’s mouth that the poor fellow is a can’t-quite-get-out-of-the-closet homosexual (thanks to the vagaries of religion in his life — yeah, I dated lots of Christians back in the day) and I don’t really want to internet-out the poor lamb.

The most famous person I know, however, is Rich Sommer from Mad Men. Never dated him, but went to college and sang in choir with him. When he guest starred on The Office, I pretty much freaked out. I remember writing on his Facebook wall that if he tried to steal Pam from Jim, I would never speak to him again.

And I met all of these people in Minnesota. Home to the stars.

I know this post isn’t exactly an update, but hell — I’ve gotta start again somewhere.

Do you know anyone famous?