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constanceI feel a little bad about saying this, but my current town, it is kind of a rebound town, you know? It is safe and a little dull, and sometimes I just want a little more than it has to offer. But also: it is what I need, after the battering I took in my last relationship with a city. My parents approve, I can relax. And there are bits of it that I find appalling, like the overt racism. But. The rebound town, though I may eventually have to give it the axe as well, suits me right now.
Anyway, Laurel wanted to know, and so I present the companion to yesterday's entry.
1. It takes no more than 20 minutes to drive from one end of town to the other. Considering the fact that it used to take me 45 minutes just to get to Wal-Mart on, like, a Tuesday night, I consider this a substantial plus.
2. My knitting group, which my friend L. started up recently, is sort of a loosely-knit (oops, no pun intended, honestly, but I think I'll leave it in) group of women of differing ages and interests. We get together at this deserted little coffee shop and knit for a couple of hours whenever the majority of us are free, and I. Love. Going. I can't explain why it sends me. Oh, yes, I can, too. I love being able to get together with people who can offer me advice--almost everyone in the group has more experience than I do--and chat, too. It is a fine thing to get something accomplished and socialize at the same time. Plus, you know, the caramel macchiatos are good.
3. Restaurant news: There is a new Indian restaurant in town. Indian food was one of the things I missed most, when I moved here, and this restaurant's food is quite lovely. Plus, I love going there because it is kind of a crap-shoot, service-wise; every time I've been there, they've gotten our order wrong in some way, and the food is delightful no matter what, but it's just kind of an adventure to see what's coming each time. And key lime pie and gelato notwithstanding, this city is home to one of my all-time favorite desserts, the most indescribably sublime 14-layer caramel cake.
4. It has, according to a national survey, the third best housing bargains in the country (behind Memphis and Salt Lake City), of a study of the 99 largest housing markets. While I have a hard time believing that we are one of the top 99 housing markets, this comes as a pleasurable sort of shock, and only encourages my house-lust to resurface. And I know this sounds like the most boring thing on the planet, but IT IS NOT TO ME OKAY.
5. It gave me a job. Two of them, as a matter of fact, and I like them both. It wants to give me a house loan. It wants to give me credit. It wants me to have a real, grown-up life and stop living like a struggling college graduate. I am trying to relax and oblige.
6. I am only 30 minutes away from the Atlanta Motor Speedway! No, just kidding.
6, for real. The weather is familiar enough so that I don't feel disoriented, but it is not nearly as intemperate as NO weather. In general, it's about 10 degrees cooler here than it is in Louisiana, and that ten degrees makes an extraordinary difference to my morale. Have I made it clear that there are few things that make me unhappier than being hot for extended periods of time? It is true, and I feel that this is a point I should make with, like, Wagner music playing in the background to add extra emphasis.
7. I get to see free plays! Tonight it is Tom Stoppard.
8. I am an hour away from Atlanta, which is a city I never thought to like but do, and therefore I am an hour away from major metropolitan activities, and also an hour away from a major international airport, if ever I feel the need to get the hell out for a long weekend. Anyone want to put me up?
9. Otis Redding grew up here, and the city is extremely proud of this fact (they are also proud of Little Richard and the Allman Brothers, but it is Otis Redding who has statues in city park and a little interstate overpass named after him). I love him, too, and I love that they love him. In fact, I love it so much that I have been tempted to join a fantasy baseball league, just so I can have an Otis-Redding-themed team. I want to call them the New Green Things. I want to give them the historic downtown ballpark, which is crumbling from lack of use and which I will restore for them. I want to give them lounge-suit team colors, and I want my team members (who would all, of course, have Otis Redding theme songs) to be players who look like they just got off a bender involving hazily remembered blues clubs and smoky piano bars and far too much polyester. I just want to extend the love that my city has for him, is all.
10. I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER HERE. Sure, I felt much worse, first, but that was due to circumstances with which, for once, my city had nothing to do. If nothing else, this will go down in my personal history as the town that saved my life. Not to be dramatic or anything.
:::
Also, I've been meaning to ask for the longest time. Does anyone want a gmail invitation? I'm reasonably sure that anyone who might have wanted one has one by now. But I find myself saddled with something in the neighborhood of 400 or so invitations, so if anybody wants one, just say so.
Anyway, Laurel wanted to know, and so I present the companion to yesterday's entry.
1. It takes no more than 20 minutes to drive from one end of town to the other. Considering the fact that it used to take me 45 minutes just to get to Wal-Mart on, like, a Tuesday night, I consider this a substantial plus.
2. My knitting group, which my friend L. started up recently, is sort of a loosely-knit (oops, no pun intended, honestly, but I think I'll leave it in) group of women of differing ages and interests. We get together at this deserted little coffee shop and knit for a couple of hours whenever the majority of us are free, and I. Love. Going. I can't explain why it sends me. Oh, yes, I can, too. I love being able to get together with people who can offer me advice--almost everyone in the group has more experience than I do--and chat, too. It is a fine thing to get something accomplished and socialize at the same time. Plus, you know, the caramel macchiatos are good.
3. Restaurant news: There is a new Indian restaurant in town. Indian food was one of the things I missed most, when I moved here, and this restaurant's food is quite lovely. Plus, I love going there because it is kind of a crap-shoot, service-wise; every time I've been there, they've gotten our order wrong in some way, and the food is delightful no matter what, but it's just kind of an adventure to see what's coming each time. And key lime pie and gelato notwithstanding, this city is home to one of my all-time favorite desserts, the most indescribably sublime 14-layer caramel cake.
4. It has, according to a national survey, the third best housing bargains in the country (behind Memphis and Salt Lake City), of a study of the 99 largest housing markets. While I have a hard time believing that we are one of the top 99 housing markets, this comes as a pleasurable sort of shock, and only encourages my house-lust to resurface. And I know this sounds like the most boring thing on the planet, but IT IS NOT TO ME OKAY.
5. It gave me a job. Two of them, as a matter of fact, and I like them both. It wants to give me a house loan. It wants to give me credit. It wants me to have a real, grown-up life and stop living like a struggling college graduate. I am trying to relax and oblige.
6. I am only 30 minutes away from the Atlanta Motor Speedway! No, just kidding.
6, for real. The weather is familiar enough so that I don't feel disoriented, but it is not nearly as intemperate as NO weather. In general, it's about 10 degrees cooler here than it is in Louisiana, and that ten degrees makes an extraordinary difference to my morale. Have I made it clear that there are few things that make me unhappier than being hot for extended periods of time? It is true, and I feel that this is a point I should make with, like, Wagner music playing in the background to add extra emphasis.
7. I get to see free plays! Tonight it is Tom Stoppard.
8. I am an hour away from Atlanta, which is a city I never thought to like but do, and therefore I am an hour away from major metropolitan activities, and also an hour away from a major international airport, if ever I feel the need to get the hell out for a long weekend. Anyone want to put me up?
9. Otis Redding grew up here, and the city is extremely proud of this fact (they are also proud of Little Richard and the Allman Brothers, but it is Otis Redding who has statues in city park and a little interstate overpass named after him). I love him, too, and I love that they love him. In fact, I love it so much that I have been tempted to join a fantasy baseball league, just so I can have an Otis-Redding-themed team. I want to call them the New Green Things. I want to give them the historic downtown ballpark, which is crumbling from lack of use and which I will restore for them. I want to give them lounge-suit team colors, and I want my team members (who would all, of course, have Otis Redding theme songs) to be players who look like they just got off a bender involving hazily remembered blues clubs and smoky piano bars and far too much polyester. I just want to extend the love that my city has for him, is all.
10. I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER HERE. Sure, I felt much worse, first, but that was due to circumstances with which, for once, my city had nothing to do. If nothing else, this will go down in my personal history as the town that saved my life. Not to be dramatic or anything.
:::
Also, I've been meaning to ask for the longest time. Does anyone want a gmail invitation? I'm reasonably sure that anyone who might have wanted one has one by now. But I find myself saddled with something in the neighborhood of 400 or so invitations, so if anybody wants one, just say so.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 11:46 pm (UTC)I think that is the very best reason for living there, Cammy. It's even better than Otis Redding! In fact, it makes me want to come there and live with you too.
You should join that fantasy baseball league, you know. ;;) Though the whole park thing would be nothing but your own creation.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 12:08 am (UTC)I bet Macon wants to give you credit too, is what I am trying to say. You should come, if not to live, then to visit.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 12:19 am (UTC)I am on my way.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 04:37 am (UTC)YES EXACTLY. The porches are very deep! There are big windows! Huge! There are climbing roses! And lazy bumblebees! You would be very happy here, if all you needed was a porch.
And internet access. We can just share a wireless connection.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 06:32 am (UTC)I was going to say I had never been to the South, but then I remembered about Oklahoma.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 12:22 pm (UTC)It's not really the West, either. Nor the Midwest. Who knows what the hell Oklahoma is. But South is about last on the list.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 04:43 am (UTC)I don't know where this leaves Kentucky, man. I have always privately considered it sort of southern, but with my Oklahoma miscalculation, I feel that my yardstick may be a little off.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 05:04 am (UTC)encouraging multicultural exchange since, er, 2005
Date: 2005-03-25 04:35 pm (UTC):O You will have to come visit me! Then you will have been to the South, of which Georgia is indubitably a part.
Re: encouraging multicultural exchange since, er, 2005
Date: 2005-03-26 04:54 am (UTC)I must ask you, though, one very important question: IS THERE A SONIC DRIVE-IN? Because if there is, you would be required to take me there. Until I was schooled earlier today by Ms. Palmolive, I would have told you that presence of a Sonic Drive-In was a strong indicator of southernness, but now it is firmly established that I don't know shit.
Re: encouraging multicultural exchange since, er, 2005
Date: 2005-03-26 05:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 03:59 pm (UTC)*grumble* I wish I had someone who'd go out for Indian food with me.
Also, I thought I had a lot of gmail invitations, but your 400 certainly trounces my 50.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 04:41 pm (UTC)Hahahahaha, and I only get 50 invitations per address, but I had the idea of creating new accounts to store system backups, and each account I created has 50 invitations tacked on to it. So it's not that I'm special or anything--just multiply accounted.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 05:09 pm (UTC)I'm still a beginner. I can knit and purl, and I am working on my first scarf. I can't do anything fancier than that. And there are people who have even less experience than I do, and people who have been knitting all their lives, and people who don't knit at all and just bring something else portable and crafty to do. We are flexible! So you could come visit any time! That is my point!