The drive becomes enchanting a few miles from Baton Rouge when, for the first time in my life, I see miles of Louisiana swampland sprawl beneath the interstate, frightful, desolate and utterly beautiful. Black tree stumps peering from still waters, receding into lush, tangled green where who knows what menace awaits. And me, disappointed that I’m only roaring past all this at 80mph. In vain I try to snap some pictures…

The Baton Rouge bridge is another spectacle, massive steel claw extended over the Mississippi, which looks misty, still and forlorn in the morning light. BR clings to its banks in a mess of factories, plants, train tracks and other industrial rubbish.

I arrive. I barely rest before I strap on my sneakers and follow the beckoning call of the Quarter. Possessed, I pace about for the next two hours, indulging in familiar sights and sounds, filling my lungs with that sweet stench of beer and rotting wood. Music pours from around the corner. I head over to the Frenchmen hotel on Decateur where, during that last fateful visit, I became briefly possessed, sobbing hysterically on the bed while my friends held me. Reason still tells me it was merely heat exhaustion and alcohol poisoning. I snap a picture from across the street, for posterity.

Megan arrives at St. Peter's House circa 5PM and big hugs are in order – I haven’t seen her since our all-too-brief encounter on her wedding day some months ago and we’d only just begun speaking more frequently a while back. It’s so damn good to see her and we’re as comfortable as ever, though I find that to this day her piercing gaze still makes me stammer and look away. We resume our wanderings about the quarter, and as the evening sets in, we run into a sad shadow of a man – an acquaintance of Megan’s who is walking the quarter alone, profoundly intoxicated. It’s not the last time I’ll glimpse the sadness this ruinous city can impose on its people.

We head down to One Eyed Jack’s on Toulouse – the interior is gorgeous, a Goth’s dream, with burgundy brocade wall paper and gilded frame mirrors above the bar and comfortable red leatherette booths. I settle in, SoCo and Coke in hand. Megan regretfully notes the absence of a kissing booth which had been there just last weekend.

While we await Ted, we gossip like rabid hens, venting happily about friendships and relationships which populate our past.

Ted arrives and I meet him outside – he’s unmistakably himself, direct and immediately to the point, but nonetheless he offers me a hug in the middle of the street and I’m smitten, of course.

Megan is then subjected to some absinthe forum-related rants and general catching up on old times. It had been nearly 2 years since Ted and I spoke in earnest on the phone – then it was general venting about the politics of the place, now it’s a more reflective, subdued discussion on the evolution and recent success of Jade. One Eyed Jack’s fills up with New Orleans’ hipster crowd so we retreat to Pirates’ Alley Café, where the fateful gathering of the forumites took place some years back. Ted leads the way, with us two girls marching dutifully in the safety of his shadow.

Throughout the evening I’ve been eyeing the weathered silver flask in Ted’s grasp, held along with his cell phone. I pick it up daintily, like an auspicious object and trace the "TBA" engraved upon it.

"It's seen a lot of action"
"Is that what the 'A' stands for?"

Without further ado, the ritual commences. At Pirates' Alley Cafe, every hour is the green hour. As the first glass is poured, we both marvel and delight at that last moment of transformation, before the final layer of clear dark green is submerged into the milky puddle below - the limbo louche, the beautiful metamorphosis. The scent, the taste is beyond delightful - like the work of some Art Nouveau artisan, it is fine.

At this point Megan must think we're either deranged or utter dorks. She recalls her own horrific absinthe experience which, unsurprisingly, involved a flaming sugar cube. We offer her a brief dip into my glass but, scarred for life by the terrors of Absente, she’s not won over by the herbal complexities of Jade.

The flask is drained. My friend departs around midnight, happy she’s not being driven home by either of the two lushes. Ted and I resume our chat – I’d forgotten how conductive of great conversation absinthe is and we rant in fine form about politics, Fahrenheit 9/11, pharmaceutical companies and the like. I’m bristling with passion and some experience, Ted speaks from experience and a tempered passion.

As I stand to leave, at last Jade takes its toll, for the walk back to the hotel, under Ted’s protection, is perhaps the most surreal part of my evening. I feel caught in a dream, winding through the onrush of party monsters. There is nothing hallucinogenic about this march, but how can I claim it was real? I think I remained coherent.

The next morning evaporates in a haze. I take time to stumble down into the cozy hotel courtyard in a worn cotton slip, mary janes and my ghetto fabulous sunglasses. I consume vast quantities of complimentary continental breakfast, softened up with at least half a gallon of very light Irish Cream coffee. My sole companion, some lone middle-aged man at the next table, casts odd glances up from his paper, beholding this pale, hefty girl with a beastly appetite whose gaze seems so distant or vacuous. The world melts in a sunny, sweltering blur.