We came across a column Brett Will Taylor wrote last year to celebrate two-year anniversary of his move from Boston to New Orleans.

The column originally appeared on NOLAvie.com.

Excerpts from the NOLAvie.com story of the 10 things he’s learned from living in New Orleans:

9.  Homes are happier with glitter. It’s been said that glitter is the STD of New Orleans.  And let me tell you something: Once that STD gets in your house, there is not a vacuum cleaner, a broom, or even a roll of damp paper towels that will ever get it out. Ever. Which I think makes our homes happier. I know it does me.

8.  Time really is relative. Live here long and you really do lose all track of time (and I’m not just talking about an extended evening at The John!). Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months just sort of flow one into the other. A friend of mine confessed to me that she and a coworker once got into a lengthy discussion about what day of the week it was. “He said it was Tuesday; I assured him it was Thursday.” She said that finally one of them thought to look on their phone.  It was Monday.

7.  Pit bulls are awesome. If you live here, I don’t have to elaborate that point. But what I will elaborate on is the greater lesson of NOLA pits: That sometimes we forget bullies might be bullying because, somewhere along the way, someone bullied them. And that, sometimes, the best antidote to bullying is love. And a pat on the head or a scratch on the butt (be careful where and with whom you try that last one).

2.    You can never do it all.  I was just trying to recruit someone for my Krewe of PUEWC.  He has lived here all of three weeks and explained that he wasn’t going to get involved with anything here because he wanted to “observe everything there is before committing to one thing.” I explained to him that a) you don’t “observe” in NOLA, you “experience” and b) you can’t experience “everything” of anything here. It’s impossible. Rather, you just walk through doors that open, when they open, and remember that the Universe knows a lot more than you do.

Read the list here.