Welcome to Georgia!!

Home of 'Mizz Skahhhlit'...
...and...home of me!!

I'd like to give a shout out to my travel companion -- Percival the Poinsettia
he's a trooper, I only watered him once!

driving through eastern Georgia...
Peach trees! (they're not as pretty in winter)

I love trains. I think they remind me of College Station. and I love College Station.






this is the water tower in Fort Valley. I got lost in Fort Valley.

sometimes you just think, God?...gimme a sign!

I'm not ranking Savannah, so this was just my 'vacation' in Savannah :)

Savannah is sooooo pretty, gah! it's beautiful! some say it's the most haunted city in the U.S. I wonder who decides this, by which measure does it beat out all the other haunts? Some people think the Spanish moss is creepy, but Tampa is all Spanish moss and i don't think it's creepy. It did sorta have that Nawlin's, romantic, very old, lots of history feel...The city was laid out in squares of parks. That is the extent of my history knowledge, I should be ashamed. Please read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for more details.

There is a fantastic art school in Savannah that my friend Dave graduated from. Wish I had visited him while he was there, hung out with the 'cool crowd' :) The art school has bought up tons of old buildings all over Savannah, the school is spread out pretty much everywhere. And anywhere you go, restaurants, coffee shops... there hangs student artwork, soooo nice! But very different than Austin. Savannah's art scene seemed to have a striving/am-i-good-enough/serious/this-is-how-i'll-pay-my-rent feel, while Austin seems more raw, obvious, confident, maybe garish? Maybe it's the difference between southeast coast and southwest?

I stayed with a young couple from Wisconsin. They lived in the entire upstairs part of a big, beautiful home in the historic district. Hard wood floors, fancy wide baseboards and crown moulding, inset bookshelves, a teeny library, a long narrow yoga room, original bathroom fixtures. They took me out that night in Savannah, and two hours in, he leaned round from the driver's seat and informed me that they had broken up two days prior...'why do you always have to bring that up?' she chided.
'Oh! really? ...oh, i'm...i-i'm, sorry? that's, uhhm...' what the hell was I supposed to say? I had JUST met them!
Throughout the night, I studied their dynamic and began to feel so sorry for this guy. He did something with computers (his explanation sailed 10 feet over my head), they'd been friends, they hooked up, he moved to Savannah for work, she tagged along because she was bored in Wisconsin. This girl is beyond beautiful and she absolutely knows it. She was very kind and warm toward me, but she had the confidence and apathy of someone who's never been hurt before. When it was just her and me, I asked, 'Well, are you ok? Are you gonna move back to Wisconsin?' 'Oh, no, I'm fine. I get over relationships pretty quick. He'll be fine, too. I'm already starting to see someone.' I watched as he fought his natural instinct to treat her like a queen; begin to walk toward her car door, think twice and double back around to his side. Later that night, he would tease her about this other guy, and the sleeping situation, and who he was gonna bring home; you could tell that he was trying to play it cool, trying to mimic her apathy. I wanted to shake her. Anyway...

I saw this at the waterfront restaurant we went to...hard to imagine a time when this was taken seriously.
Later we went to the Mellow Mushroom. Apparently, it's all over the South. Pizza and beer.

More Savannah stuff...

technicolor?





I'd forgotten the damp smell of things that grow in the shade:)


pretty colors





for some reason, I really love pics of stairs
I'm sure there's a psychological explanation:)




scary stairs!!
there were plenty of beautiful, tallllllll, detailed, old churches





I sorta had to climb in the bushes for this shot, I think someone from a visiting tour bus took a picture of me flailing my way out of the bushes

walking down this sidewalk, I passed a fanstastically creepy cemetary
creepy in a peaceful sorta way
like, it's ok to have nightmares and dark corners


on the southeast coast, if you sit still long enough in the shade, you too will turn a light shade of green
coffee shop
not allowed to take pictures inside, to protect the originality of the artwork
so this is my 'undercover spy' shot of the coffee shop
and this is me :)

preview of cuteness

i just had to post one
ain't he cute?!
he just started walking without hanging out to something and he has these marchy little steps
and he's so tubby, little pot belly and chunky thighs...
and he gives great hugs
ok, more later:)

New Year's

a few pics from New Year's...
me n' CamLiz looks like this in every single picture I have of her since high school




I have no idea who this is
Liz and I acquired a boat on our way back to the parking garage...




they are a fantastically exciting couple, very lively
can you feel the hangover??

Little Rock

ok, so Little Rock...
it was so impressive, I just hate to even talk about it cuz it ain't happenin
the hospital was just unreal, so up-to-date, everything geared toward kids, fantastic 3-D artwork on the walls, kids' artwork everywhere, high-tech everything, the faculty and residents were SO nice and got along SO well (and their reputation gives them the right to be arrogant, but they're not!) AND the program is big, but it doesn't seem like an anonymous doctor factory like Baylor...plus that makes call really nice
surprisingly, there are tons of Texas people there
6/7 of the applicants that day were from Texas
one of the interns said he'd made it to every Aggie home game this season, that's pretty impressive for an intern...
and i just love Arkansas, it's soooooo pretty
Little Rock's not that pretty, it's just a poor city, but I still like it, lots of old houses, I love old buildings, AND Clinton is from there...so...that's nice
and there's a huge farmers market twice a week down by the river, plus some of the residents have a bimonthly potluck thingy...and since i love love love to cook, that would be fun
I got a private tour of the PICU and met the ICU docs
AND they're the only children's hospital in the whole state plus they catch kids in states surrounding Arkansas, too
AND you can go on transports including helicopter!!

however, i'm not going to talk about it ANYMORE

I stayed with a girl in LR, ex-military, works for the power company
she lives in an olllld building that's been fixed up, hardwood floors, the old kinda windows that are painted shut and have that echoey shudder if you tap them, she lived a block from the governor's mansion, two kitty kitties, she seems to have lived everywhere and traveled everywhere, I feel like such a homebody
she cooked us lasagna and then we walked to a nearby bar in the misting cool
the houses were out of this world, old, individual, a church converted into apartments, what would it be like to live in a church? sidewalks cracked into exaggerated angles by roots of oak trees
we saw a live band called The Honkies
they were really great, southern rock/bluegrass, harmonica and steel guitar, and this one 'guest' singer, she was so amazing! a smallish girl but she belted out Johnny Cash and everyone was just absorbed in her talent, no gimmicks she just stood there and swayed to her beat and sang her little heart out
*sigh*

i'm a slacker blogger of late

i'm in charleston and they're playing all my favorite songs on the classic rock station
is that a sign??

plus i have sort of a light and airy feeling
maybe it's the hotel, i'm right on the charleston bay, top floor
it's beautiful and crisp and sunshiney :)

i don't even wanna talk about Little Rock...
Savannah good, more later :)

man, i remember this, this was my world, all we knew, all we hung out with all we talked about the people who babysat me the people we lived with the people who slept on our couch the people we visited in the hospital us kids who ironically used together the kids i babysat, they're all the same, same stories same smokey laugh and wrinkles same sayings same amused feeling when the 'nice old lady' tells some real fucked up story he tells me about the latest kid how her mom's in jail the difference in dopamine receptors for coke and meth and remember the coke in Tampa? and how you don't have to cook meth anymore and oh remember lisa? yeah she jumped in front of a train few months back and it's a good thing you grew up with it all so it lost it's glamour and don't med students drink a lot? well you got it in your blood ya know you need to be careful...
he got up from the restaurant table, outside to smoke a cigarette
they immediately turned to me, 'let us get your phone number in case anything happens youknownottoscareyoubuthegetsdepressedandallandwewouldn't
knowwhotocallifsomethingweretohappenyou'retheonlyfamilywe
knowofhehardlyeverleavesthehouseandwejustwantyoutoknow
thatit'sokthatyouleftyoushouldn'tfeelguiltyaboutwantingtobeina
betterplacegettinganeducationandallyoudidtherightthingand
we'resoproudofyou...' and on and on as i pinched an unseen piece of skin on the back of my neck to keep from losing it, i've gotten soft in my old age and i hate crying in public, and it's glaring in my face where i can't just not answer the phone, he's sick and i'm it, and i left, i abandoned them to save myself and i don't care and i don't feel guilty and i don't give a fuck, but sometimes i do, and i knew it would be like this, coming back, too many memories, too many old stories, too many dead people, and i hate coming back, but i feel like i'm betraying the place i came from, like i can't forget that girl, she's relying on me to make it all worthwhile, and who do you think you are don't forget, you're not from Texas and you're not from Westlake and you'll never belong in the six-figure world