who am I kidding?

I should have known the hiatus wouldn't last long, and really this month or so was too long, if you ask me. For a few weeks, I reflected on this forum and licked my wounds and tried to figure out if I wanted to keep writing here. Then I realized that as usual, I was overthinking it, being a tad melodramatic, and I just needed to just shut up and get back to the business of writing.

To follow in the "mass email" theme, I'll start with a bit of news about me. I have finally determined where I am moving. After bouncing around for a few months (most recently staying at my dad's house with all my stuff stored in the garage), and being somewhat transient for the last two years, I finally have plans to settle in Baltimore. I know, I know. The city doesn't really command the drum roll and flying confetti as some other spots, but I do think it will be the best spot for me now. Trust me, I know the pros and cons of the city, and have spent time there when I lived in DC. (As my friend CK put it, it has just the right amount of white trash - which is a good thing that DC altogether lacked - but it doesn't have a rep for being particularly safe.)

Anyway, my long-time boyfriend (that's my new term for him... says more than just boyfriend, but he isn't my husband...) just accepted an awesome job. We've also got friends there, and we were ready to move somewhere kind of familiar and close to home. For me, the job search has amounted to a massive bitch slap, so I decided to step away for a bit, continue to freelance, and then once settled, find an equally awesome journo-related job.

So that's the news. We leave next week. And my first item of business after we find an apartment is to buy a couch. (We have nary a stick of furniture between the two of us and I fantasize about stretching out on a real live couch - and not the kind that was lifted from the high school rec room like the one we used to have.)

I have spent the last two weeks at my dad's house in Alabama, and as usual, there are so many things that are just awesome and so many things that are shocking.

Awesome: Perhaps it's a given, but what comes to mind is the stick-to-your-ribs pulled pork BBQ sandwiches dripping in sweet and smoky sauce and served next to greasy onion rings and cold light beer.

Shocking: Bumper sticker in rural Alabama that had a Confederate flag and said "Fighting Terrorism since 1861." Reminds me of a T-shirt I saw in Panama City Beach, Florida that said alongside a Confederate flag: "You've got your X, I've got mine."

Awesome: Floating lazily down a river in inner tubes with a few cool Bud Light tall boys in hand, spotting sunning turtles and generally having the giggles. (Equally awesome is the man who drove us in the back of his truck down to the river: He was donning dirty tan overalls and a baseball cap, had eyes that didn't entirely point in your direction when he was talking to you, and when he spoke, it often took a few minutes and a couple other natives to understand what he was saying.)

Shocking: Someone close to me (who's relation and name is withheld) saying "Now we just have to figure out what to do with all the Mexicans."

That's the South for you, I guess. For a while, we considered staying. There were a couple of job options that had this fine town on the table, and it was easy to get swept up in the romantic idea of living here - where we have friends and family, the weather's hot but nice, the food's always greasy delicious, the people are nice and the pace of living is slow and kind. As much as I love it, I think it's probably lucky that it didn't work out. Perhaps I love it so much because I am only here to visit. I can shake my head at the local political ads that use the word "liberal" and "gay" with disdain and the lingering ignorance of the South. And I can revel in the culture, the food, the lifestyle. And maybe one day, it will draw me back.