Those good people at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine are determined to let us know how filthy our environment is. They have a program called the Healthy Home Project to test indoor air quality, and are testing the air in my home for mold, radon, nitrogen dioxide, and other undesirable things. In the photo is the tiny machine that tests for mold spores. Needless to say, I can't wait to see how badly my house in infested with mold.

Luckily my apartment is on the second floor, so it avoided floodwaters two years ago. But it's over half a century old, maybe more, and even if it hasn't been flooded it still has had summer after summer of stale humidity behind it.

Having worked in the Lower 9th Ward last summer, I think it's pretty safe to say that I've been exposed to ambient mold in the air before, and my body seems to have dealt with it acceptably. I was smoking a great deal at the time, though, under the (possibly deluded) impression that, if I kept the cilia of my lungs clogged with nicotine and tar, there would be no room for mold or other toxins to take up residence.

I haven't smoked in over a month, though, so if my dubious theory was correct, I have less tolerance to airborne matter now. I won't go back to smoking, no matter what the air tests find (unless there's another hurricane that hits Louisiana this year ... then you better believe I'm gonna crumble like a house of cards), so I hope the air in my home is clean.