The Saints flipping won the Super Bowl. Everything’s gone crazy, in good ways. I woke up this morning already overwhelmed–parades, tailgating, the Saints in the Super Bowl–too much, really. I don’t yet have the coping skills necessary for that constant level of excitement. Cope by bike, I say. So I hopped on Rhoda and headed out early so as to not miss anything. I caught a couple Uptown parades in order to gather black and gold beads and practice my yells and shouts. Then I tooled down to the Quarter for the dog parade, all dogs in Saints gear. Everybody was in Saints gear. Black and gold, everywhere. The place was positively abuzz. I can’t explain the feeling, the part where everyone is on the edge of losing their f’ing minds with excitement, and all over the same thing. Finally, game time. Oh, it was so stressful! When we hit the fourth quarter, I was sitting on my friend’s couch, thinking how close it was, how I could almost start to really imagine what it would be like to get what we all wanted so very badly. But the risk of wanting like that! Gah! But then we won. The Saints won the Super Bowl. We all rolled out of our houses and bars and on to the streets for mass high fivery and dancing in the streets and screaming our heads off. I took this picture on Decatur Street where cars were inching slowly through traffic, but nobody seemed to care if it took all night to get through. Because we’ve got some dancing to do. Yep, time to stand up and get crunk, as they say. I turned to R. later in the night as we headed to S.’s for a dance party. “And after all this, I get to ride my bike home through these crowds!” Yeah, today felt like that, like it just feels good to be alive, alongside all the rest of you.